Upholstered Headboard DIY – Paper and Stitch

Made another DIY headboard! This one is under $100 and takes less than 2 hours to make.

I’ve been seeing lots of minimal upholstered headboards and bed frames lately, but they’re all very pricey. And I can’t seem to even find one outside of a queen or kind size bed. Our guest bed is a full. So I decided to make my own.

Last time I made an upholstered headboard, it was an arch shape. Remember this DIY headboard? But this time, I’m going with a simpler shape, to keep it classic and minimal. And making sure not to skip the step I missed last time that almost had me reupholstering the whole thing.

How much does it cost to upholster a headboard?

The cost is dependent on the size of the headboard / bed frame and the materials you select. One place to save money is to use an upholstery foam that is on the thinner side. And other places you can save would be opting for a more affordable fabric or cheaper wood / MDF for the base.

To give you a better idea of how much an upholstered headboard like this one would cost, I’ll share my total. After adding up all the materials, the final cost of my DIY headboard was less than $100 (I think it was $82) for a full-size bed headboard. I used linen fabric, 1 inch thick upholstery foam, pretty affordable batting, and birch plywood.

I think you could realistically get the cost down to $40 or $50 for a full-size bed if you really tried. Maybe less if you already have some of the materials.

How thick should an upholstered headboard be?

Somewhere between 1 and 2.5 inches is a good thickness range for a DIY headboard like this. Much thicker and it may start to look a little weird without piping or some other decorative element.

How much wider should a headboard be than the bed?

Anywhere from two to six inches is a good range, but it also depends on the style you’re going for. My headboard is 6 inches larger than the bed frame, for reference.

Headboard Materials

• Lightweight wood panels or something similar- Depending on the size of your bed, you may be able to easily find one piece of wood long enough to use as the backer / base for this project. If not, you can put two pieces together to create one larger piece. That’s what I did.
• Fabric yardage – The yardage will depend on the size of your bed and headboard.
• Upholstery foam – Upholstery foam is available in many thicknesses. The thickness of foam will make up the bulk of the thickness of your finished headboard, so keep that in mind when selecting a size. The thicker the foam, the more expensive. So this wold be a good place to cut cost if needed. I used a 1 inch thick foam. But I would say anything between 3/4 inch and 2 inches would work well.
• Batting – Batting helps soften the shape between the upholstery foam and fabric. You won’t need much. Just enough to cover the front surface of the headboard.
• Scissors – Fabric scissors work the best for this, but any scissors will work.
• D rings – You can find these at any home improvement store or online.

Equipment Needed

• Staple gun and staples – I’ve used MANY staple guns over the years and the best one that I’ve used (and still use to this day) is this Dewalt staple gun. It’s not much more than any other staple gun you can find, but it works MUCH better. Trust me.
• Iron – You’ll need an iron to make sure the fabric is wrinkle free before you get started with the project. Some slight / small wrinkles are fine though. They’ll be pulled out when you stretch the fabric over the wood panel.
• Drill – You’ll only need a drill for installing the D-rings. If you decide to use a different method to hang the finished headboard, you won’t need a drill at all.
• Saw – You may need a circular saw if you’re cutting a panel or panels down to the right size for your bed frame.

How to Make a Headboard

Here’s how I made an upholstered headboard for under $100 (in less than 2 hours).

1) First, build a frame with lightweight wood/ panels.

I made the frame 6 inches wider than the existing bed frame, so it would have some extra visual weight. I used a thin (1/4 inch thick) birch plywood from Home Depot and cut it down to the size I needed, with a saw.

2) Cut down a layer of upholstery foam, batting, and fabric.

Next, you’ll cut all the soft pieces for the upholstered headboard.

The upholstery foam should be the exact size of the wood frame that was built / cut in step one. And the batting and fabric should be at least 3 inches larger than the frame on all sides.

So, you should have the wood frame on the bottom, then upholstery foam, then batting, then fabric at the very top.

3) Iron the fabric top layer.

You may be able to skip this step. It’s just to get rid of any major wrinkles. I had quite a few I needed to steam out because the fabric had been folded for a long time before I used it.

For any small / minor wrinkles, you can probably skip ironing. The small ones will pulled out when you stretch and staple all of the layers in the next step.

4) Flip it over and staple everything.

Carefully flip over the wood frame with all the foam and fabric layers. Stretch and staple all the layers at once, so you only have to do one round of stapling.

Be sure to pull the fabric and batting tight across the frame when stapling. This will keep the upholstery from sagging later.

5) Add hooks / rings and attach to the wall.

Using D-rings as hooks for the wall is just one way to hang a headboard like this one. There are many other ways it can be done, like attaching the headboard to the actual bed frame, instead of the wall.

I just happen to use D-rings because I already had them and I couldn’t attached my headboard to the bed frame. I used three D-rings in total and made sure they were a the same height, all the way across the back of the headboard to make hanging easier.

What was the step that you skipped last time you made a headboard that you’ll never forget to do again?

The batting! When I made the arch headboard, I was trying to save money and skipped this step. Which ended up being a big mistake because the upholstery foam I used was green. And because I didn’t use any batting (or another layer of fabric) between the two pieces, the finished headboard has a greenish tint to it, as opposed to the neutral beige / tan color it was supposed to be. The fabric was thin enough that the green showed through.

I didn’t realize until the headboard was completely finished and I didn’t want to have to rip off the fabric and start over. So I left it as is, and I got used to the color. BUT I will never make that mistake again.

Batting also helps soften the shape of the foam, so it would have helped in that case too. In the end, the arch headboard looks good. But definitely could have been made better with batting underneath the fabric top layer.

Anyway! Back to the current DIY headboard. I love how out turned out.

It’s simple, but still elevates the space. Plus, it matches the vintage Moroccan rug I recently brought in here. Bonus!

Looking for more DIY headboard ideas?

Here are a couple of my favorites…