DIY Headboard and Duvet

My latest project has been a new headboard for our master bedroom. I'd been looking for fabric for a while and when I found this turquoise starfish print on linen back in March, I knew it was the one. So I bought it and the solid turquoise fabric to pipe it in and then proceeded to let it sit in a closet for 4 months constantly thinking that I would get to it just as soon as I had a spare moment. Then as if she were a gift from heaven, my most fabulous aunt Juanita who loves to have a project and is a wonderful perfectionist stopped by to borrow my sewing machine and asked me what projects I had done since she had last been over. So I showed her the family photo gallery wall and the kitchen message center and pulled out the fabric and told her my plan. The next day she called and offered to help if I wanted her to. Hmmm, let me think...yes!!!!

We were winging it a bit, but you can learn from our mistakes. We used a solid wood six panel door that my dog had scratched the heck out of (there may or may not be a door on our downstairs bathroom at the moment) as our base. We inserted foam into the area where the panels were to prevent and divets, and then wrapped the door with a queen size piece of quilter's batting. We attached everything with a staple gun except the foam which we taped down with industrial tape. Unfortunately, it didn't give us quite the thickness we were hoping for so we added a bit more batting and then wrapped it again with a few old towels to give it more thickness. That was perfect.

Next we laid out the fabric on the door, centered it where we wanted it and cut it to size with an additional 1/2 inch on the top and sides for seems and about 3 inches on the bottom so that we could wrap the fabric around the bottom and fasten it with staples to the back. Note that I bought railroaded fabric (which can be run either way without the pattern looking sideways) so that I wouldn't have to have seems on the front of the headboard. I bought 1 3/4 yards which was cutting it pretty close so buy 2 yards if you can just to be on the safe side.

We also cut 3 strips of the starfish fabric to about the depth of the headboard plus 4-6". One was the length of the headboard, and 2 the height of the headboard, and we sewed them together so that the seems would fall in the top corners of the headboard and it would appear slip covered. Then we sewed the front piece, turquoise piping and strip of fabric that would cover the depth of the headboard all together. We flipped it to the right side, put it over the door and fastened the fabric on the back with a staple gun. And voila, a fabulous new headboard!

Of course you can't have a new headboard without a new duvet too. One of the reasons it has taken me so long to do this room is that I painted the walls Bittersweet Chocolate by Benjamin Moore which is very dark, but which I also love. My husband said no flower bedding, and I didn't want anything that was going to make the room look any darker, but I was having no luck finding anything in my price range that also met those requirements. I also didn't want to spend a lot of money because we have two small children and a dog that destroyed our last two duvets that I loved from Yves Delorme and Manuel Canovas. So I bought two king size white flat sheets at TJ Maxx and cut them down to fit my down comforter and piped them with the same turquoise fabric that we piped the headboard with. I'm contemplating adding some pretty gold buttons that I have, but it might be too much for this particular room. We'll see.

Either way, I love how both the headboard and the duvet came out, and both for under $100. I'm hoping to use the money I saved on two ceramic turquoise lamps that I spotted at TJ Maxx too. And while I am not so thrilled with the minimal styling and wrinkled-ness displayed in the photos here considering I have helped style many a bed for photo shoots, it would probably have taken me another 4 months to post this if I waited til I had an ironed duvet...unless of course my fabulous aunt Juanita stopped by again.