How to Make an Upholstered Headboard With Legs

Wooden headboards can look old and worn when they're chipped and peeling. Instead of spending a lot of money on a new headboard, you can transform your old headboard by covering it with upholstery fabric. A padded and upholstered headboards with legs looks more elegant and expensive than a plain wooden headboard, and it may make your bedroom look like it's professionally decorated. You can use materials from any fabric store to do this project.

Measuring tape
Upholstery fabric
Scissors
Cotton batting
Spray adhesive
Staple gun
Half-inch staples

Instructions

- 1
  Remove the headboard, along with its legs, from your bed frame. Lay it flat on a clean working surface.
- 2
  Measure the headboard width and height, including the legs. Then cut out a rectangle from medium-weight upholstery fabric, using scissors. The fabric should be the size of the headboard, plus 4 inches all the way around.
- 3
  Cut a rectangle of cotton batting, using scissors. It should be as long and wide as the headboard.
- 4
  Go over the front of the headboard with spray adhesive. Lay the cotton batting on top of the headboard, and pat it down, making sure it's secure.
- 5
  Lay the upholstery fabric on top of the headboard and legs as you prepare to draw it over the top, sides and bottom. Using your scissors, snip up 4 inches on both sides of each leg so that you can draw up the fabric along the bottom of the headboard. Leave the extra 4 inches at the legs alone.
- 6
  Pull the upholstery fabric taut over the top of the headboard, and secure, using a staple gun. Don't go all the way to the corners. Pull the upholstery fabric around each side the headboard the same way, and staple, again leaving the corners alone. Do the same with the bottom, leaving the legs alone. Finesse the fabric in the corners, folding it in the way that creates the least bulk. Secure your corners, using a staple gun.
- 7
  Fold under the fabric at each leg, and staple. Leave an inch of fabric at the legs so that no wood shows when you reattach the headboard to the bed frame.
- 8
  Trim off any excess fabric at the back of the headboard, using scissors, and then reattach the upholstered headboard and legs to the frame.

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