A Fantastic Upholstered Headboard DIY

I can’t believe an inexpensive pegboard is the base for this DIY upholstered headboard.  What a great idea!  It makes the tufting part of the project much quicker and easier.  There is no need to spend large amounts of money on a headboard when you can customize your own.  Thanks to Little Green Notebook for the terrific idea.

I’ve made a couple of diamond-tufted headboards now (Joanna’s was only my second though) and I feel like I have a pretty good sense of the easiest DIY approach now. For another tufted headboard tutorial I did, check out this post. I would say any upholstery job involving tufting is sort of an advanced DIY, but is this project definitely doable (maybe even fun?).

Gone are the days when I spend hours mapping out and drilling holes in plywood! I’ve been using pegboard and it is PERFECT for these headboard projects. Cheap, lightweight and sturdy enough. You’ll be hanging the pegboard on the wall so it’s okay that the board is not completely rigid.

I had Home Depot cut down the board for me, so it was just the right size for Alex and Joanna’s queen bed. The holes on pegboard are 1″ apart. You do have to do a little math and mapping out to figure out your button placements, but once you have the formula down, it’s just a matter of counting it out and marking the holes with chalk.

I had three rows of nine buttons and two rows of eight for a total of 45 tufts. (!) I wanted a lot of tufts though, so you could do less. I think it’s a good idea to look at inspiration images first and count the buttons on that headboard and estimate the spacing you’ll need for the look you’re after.

I purchased my 3″ upholstery foam at Joann’s with a 50% off coupon. I definitely recommend using exactly 3″ foam for this project. Otherwise the headboard will look thin and cheap. An important note – you only need enough foam to cover the top two-thrids or so of your pegboard. My foam was 24″ tall and my pegboard was 40″. The bottom part without the foam goes behind the bed.

So, to mark out your foam, lay the pegboard down perfectly on top of foam and use your registration marks and a sharpie.

Images from Little Green Notebook.