So, I went to Lowe's to get a 4x8 sheet of plywood 3/4 inch thick cut to 4x6. I drew out my design to scale before attempting it in real life. My husband wanted this shape because he enjoys being difficult or something:
That's a lot of curvature right there! Anyway, I did the math:
My stupid scanner cut off the 4' that is supposed to be next to that vertical line on the left hand size. The whole thing in total is 4' tall at it's highest point.
Anyway, I drew on my design. I obviously don't have a giant protractor so I took the plywood out to my back deck and tied a piece of string to one of the posts for the railing. Then I pulled the string taut to the top-center of my plywood, held the pencil steady, and drew an arc. The corners follow the same principle except they may actually be small enough to use a real protractor for. To do the corners, I taped the string 6 inches down from the top left corner. Then I found the 90 degree angle and started drawing my circle from there. If you look at my "math" photo, you will see a diagonal line pointing to the center of the corner. This is what I am referring to. You only need to do this for one side. Once you cut out one side you can use it to trace for the other.
Tools and safety: I got some C-Clamps, safety goggles, a staple gun and 3/8'' staples (asked a store associate for input on length of staple), wood screws, borrowed my neighbor's power drill and borrowed my other neighbor's jigsaw.
Clamping the sucker down. I'm sure there will be many gasping in horror that I'm doing this on my back deck.
Safety goggles. You need them.
Half way there!
Finished cutting it out, now onto upholstering it.
I went to Hancock Fabric and told them what project I was doing. They helped me determine foam thickness and how many layers of batting to get as well as a fabric that would do well for a headboard. When you get the foam you will likely need 2 pieces. I laid my headboard down on the foam and traced the top with a highlighter, then I cut it out. After that I flipped the headboard over and attached the foam (there is supposedly a "good" side to plywood, but neither side of my plywood had any marking to indicate and since I was upholstering, I didn't really care).
Now I used a hot glue gun (a lot of the tutorials I found did this with much success) but a lot of people like to use an adhesive spray. I've heard you need to do this outside since the smell is toxic (or something along those lines) and it will also stick to you like crazy. My glue gun worked just fine.
Then I laid down the batting. My batting was almost too short. Oops.
Staple gun time!
Now I don't have any pictures of trying to get the actual fabric to curve like that, but let me tell you, I was an epic pain. You need to cut it into little strips (be careful not to cut so fat that it shows on the front though) and just tug and staple, tug and staple (you can see what I mean here, I partially followed this tutorial).
Ta-Freaking-Da! Time to add some legs to this sucker. This headboard is 4 feet tall at its max and our bed is 21.5 inches from the ground to the top, which only left 26.5 inches exposed. Not enough, plus you can't attached upholstery to a bed frame. Anyway, I went and got a 2x4 that was 10 feet long and had the guy at Lowe's cut it into 3 pieces (2ft, 2ft, 6ft). I borrowed my neighbor's power drill and positioned each 2 ft piece at either end of the headboard. I left 1 ft exposed, and 1 ft to attach to the headboard. I used 6 wood screws for each leg (which my or may not have been overkill, but that sucker was gonna be stable dammit).
Then I attached the 6 ft piece to the front. I had to line this piece up with my headboard brackets to make sure I could attach it properly. I also had to get a headboard bracket extender because the brackets that came with the bed are meant for a king size headboard and we have a California king (wth Sleep Number, why did you send me the wrong size brackets? Oh you didn't, you just don't make them for California Kings even though you sell California kings? You suck). I just attached the bracket extender with the power drill.
Bracket extender on the other side.
Then I got a nut and bolt and bolted the sucker onto my bed. I suppose I could have drilled a hole through the bed legs and bolted it on that way but there was barely any over lap (less than an inch) and I didn't feel like fighting with the power drill anymore. I asked the guys at Lowe's and they said yep, this'll work and whatyaknow. It did.
And here it is! Notice my DIY reupholstered hope chest haha.
Headboard!
