A Headboard Made With Old Shutters

Finding the Shutters

• You're in luck if you already have some old shutters sitting around gathering dust in your garage or storage shed. If you don't, they are easy enough to find at salvage yards or garage sales. Ask around and a friend or relative may have some they'll give you. If you're unsuccessful at finding some old shutters, you can always buy new ones. Buy wooden shutters that can be sanded and painted. Vinyl shutters will not work well for this project. Also, measure your bed before you go shopping, and purchase enough shutters so that the headboard will be as wide or slightly wider than your mattress, and tall enough to make a big impact on your room.

Building the Headboard

• Lay the shutters out on the floor, face down, and arrange them side-by-side until they are your desired width. Lay the headboard out so that it is tall enough to show when you make your bed and place the pillows on it. The taller you make the headboard, the more dramatic it will be.

  Connect the shutters by laying a board across the bottom and middle of the shutters, and screwing all the shutters to the boards. These boards will be at the back of the headboard and will not show. If you like, you can give the headboard a professional, completed look by framing in the sides, adding posts on each side, adding legs to attach the headboard to a bed frame, or by adding a length of crown molding across the top.

Painting the Headboard

• If your shutters are covered in layers of beautiful, interesting peeling paint, you may not want to paint them. However, if your shutters don't have the finish you'd like, all you have to do is give them a coat or two in the color of your choice. Sand off all loose, chipping paint first, and use primer for best paint adhesion. Once you've painted the headboard, leave the it in it's bright, new, unblemished state, or antique it by sanding the edges or giving it a coat of antiquing glaze.

Installing the Headboard

• If you added posts or legs to your headboard, hold the headboard up to your bed frame to determine where to drill holes to attach the headboard to the bed frame. If you did not build posts or legs into your headboard, then you can simply hang the headboard on the wall and push you bed up to the headboard. You can attach it to the wall with screws or D-rings. The screws will "bite" the wooden headboard very firmly, but the wall will need strong wall anchors to hold the headboard securely.