Over the summer we decided to fix up the spare bedroom. This tiny room has been used for various things over the years, most recently as a place to dump things I didn’t know what to do with.
When the DRG moved in, he brought 2 huge heavy dressers. My original plan was to put them in the spare bedroom his son occupies when he’s with us on weekends. Unfortunately, the room was just too small, so I ended up putting them in our bigger bedroom and sending my smaller dressers across the hall. Since we were swapping everything around anyway, we ended up repainting the room and removing a chair rail that was hung at an odd height.
One thing I didn’t have was a headboard, and since we were working on a tiny budget I was on the hunt for an inexpensive and boy friendly option.
I had a stash of these pallets in my garage:
A friend of mine had a steady supply of them – they are used for transporting exercise equipment. They are a nice rectangular shape, a bit smaller than a regular door.
(The missing boards were included but not attached when I received them)
I also had a supply of 2 x 4s leftover from my deck and pergola project.
We measured the bed to see wide the headboard needed to be and then constructed a frame out of the 2 x 4s. I pulled the pallets apart and used the longer pieces as part of the support system.
I know pallet everything is all the rage, but I didn’t want to make something that clearly looked like a pallet – i.e., just propping a couple up behind the bed.
Any good DIY is fueled by love and alcohol….on this day it was Maker’s Mark on the rocks and raspberry vodka and pink lemonade with frozen raspberries.
I cut the wider pallet pieces into different lengths and pieced together a random-ish pattern.
Why yes….that IS a glass of Maker’s Mark on the edge of the project. 😉
It seemed pretty sturdy, but I attached some L brackets for extra security.
Done! It’s HUGE and HEAVY.
We had to drag it into the dining room to finish it due to an impending monsoon blowing in. I brushed on some chocolate brown stain leftover from my deck.
Once it was done I dry-brushed some off-white paint leftover from another project to give it a weathered look. It came out exactly the way I had hoped.
We did run into an issue getting it up my narrow stairs – it wouldn’t fit! Removing the frame with the legs ended up being the answer and we reassembled it once we got it upstairs.
I wanted to mount 2 sconces onto the top of the headboard. I had something like these galvanized outdoor sconces in mind from the beginning, but I was a little surprised that they were $30 each at Lowe’s. I poked around locally and online for a cheaper option with no luck.
In the end, I went for it. All the other materials we used for completely free, so I decided that $60 for a very cool and impressive custom headboard was not a bad price after all. The DRG added a dimmer switch for the lights that tucks into the nightstand.
What do you think? Cool, right?
