DIY tufted headboard

When we first moved into our home in the spring of 2012, we painted an old wooden door green and hung it above our queen-sized bed. Over time, the old door started to come apart on us so we gave it away. Our wall was bare for at least six months with a big ol' metal bar still screwed in right above our pillows. Lovely. We talked about making another headboard and I suggested a nice and soft tufted one (since nursing Jack against a wooden door was less than comfortable for a sleepy momma). Tyson decided he wanted to make one for me for Christmas. After reading many tutorials, we gathered the supplies over a few weeks and started the headboard a week before Christmas (we were procrastinators). On December 26th it was done and hung up on the big metal bar that was waiting patiently to be of use again.

Since there are so many tutorials on how to make a tufted headboard, I'm not going to write it out. Here is the link to the tutorial we followed the most: http://involvingthesenses.blogspot.com/2012/06/diy-button-tufted-headboard.html

Before:

After:

A few things we learned that could save you some headache (if you want to make one yourself):

-This is how to figure out the size of your headboard. You can probably choose whatever height you'd like, but two standard headboard heights are 24" and 36" (ours is 36"). To get the width, just measure your bed from side to side and add 3" to each side (so it's 6" plus the width of your bed).

-You can use any thickness of foam you'd like, but 3" or 4" is recommended. Ours is 4" but we probably could have done 3" and not noticed a ton of difference. We bought ours off of amazon because it was less expensive then a fabric store. It comes 24" high, so we had to order two for our 36" headboard.

-It isn't cheap. We probably spent just over $200 on everything. If you are willing to pay a little bit more rather than put in the sweat and time, then go for it.

-Pick a solid color. If you are a beginner to everything "upholstery" like we were, maybe stay away from stripes. We picked a grey and white striped upholstery fabric. Although it turned out pretty good, it was hard to align the buttons to the middle of a stripe, with the correct tension needed to create the tufts.

-Be sure to use a staple gun. It was quite handy! (Thanks Besi.)

-Buy some waxed thread to use for the buttons/tufts. We thought we could use a bunch of other things (fishing line, upholstery thread and even thin wire) but after a lot of trial an error, we reread the tutorial and noticed it said to use waxed thread in the first place. Ha.

-Be okay with a little imperfection. We are. It is homemade, after all.