Tractors and Tutus: Pinterest Project: Rustic Headboard

When we moved into our new house last month I started to change my decorating style more towards rustic and away from modern. I used a lot of roughed up wood for several of our decorative pieces and decided I wanted a huge wooden headboard to replace our old iron one. I wanted the headboard to have a weathered look to it with imperfections in walnut stained wood. I saw a similar headboard on Pinterest and thought I could easily duplicated my own. It was much easier than I had thought it would be so I thought I’d share incase someone loved it as much as we did. So here’s how to make it:

What you will need:

Wooden planks (sizes listed below)

A saw (unless you have your local Lowes/Home Depo to cut the planks for you like we did)

Flat head nails

A hammer

Wood stain (your color choice)

Clear wood sealer

Wood glue

What you do:

First we had Lowes cut three/four 8inch wide planks at least the height of how tall you want your headboard to be if not a few inches longer —for us we made our headboard 36” tall so we had them cut 40” planks. (We did a 5ft long headboard since our bed is a Queen sized bed and only used three planks but I would advise you use four on a Queen or King sized bed.) These will be your support planks, set them aside for later.

In a separate area, lay out the planks you want to use for your headboard. We used: four 2” planks, four 4” planks, and two 6” planks—all 5ft long. Once you arrange them in the descending order you want them for the headboard, make sure they all are the exact length of the size of your headboard (5ft across for us), and line up the ends. (It should look like a headboard of long, one piece planks right now.)

Next decide where you want your cuts to be on each plank—remember that you can do as many cuts across as you want but if you cut the pieces too small they will not attach to the support planks behind and will fall through the spaces in between. Now use the saw to make your cuts on each plank keeping each individual row separate from the others. (Note: if you use Lowes or Home Depo to cut your wood just make sure to either draw the lines where you want the pieces cut at or write out the sizes on a sheet of paper to take with you so that you get the correct cuts in each plank.)

Now lay out the headboard again with the cut pieces arranged in each row the way you want them FACE DOWN—smooth side down, rough side up. (Most planks have a rough side—with splintering wood—and a smooth side which is the side you want for the front of your headboard.) Once they are rough side up and pushed together touching each other with no large cracks in between, apply a thick amount of wood glue down each row. Take back out your support planks you cut before and lay them on top of the rows, spaced out equally across, and set a few heavy household objects on top for pressure as the glue dries. (We let ours sit overnight this way to make sure it was dry and it was not so we waited an extra day.)

Once the glue has dried carefully flip the headboard over, laying it down on the support planks and use your nails to secure the rows to the planks. Once the main nails for support were in, I added 1-2 nails on the end of each plank just for a rustic effect.

At this point you will stain the individual planks using a soft towel or cheese cloth to dip into the staining can and rub in long streaks along the planks. Make some darker with two coats than you do others to add a more rustic look to the headboard. (Since we had Lowes cut our wood into the planks for each row for us, we stained each individual piece before we laid them out to be glued down—making sure two dark pieces were arranged not together but spaced apart before we turned them face down. Once they were all nailed in I went back and darkened select boards as I saw fit on each row.)

Sealing the wood is the final step and your headboard is ready to install with just a few long wood screws into your wall!

And there you have it! A easy, cheap, and homemade headboard.