Arms Up

Man guys.  Remember in my last post, when I said Gianna might be the easiest baby we’ve had so far?  Unfortunately, I’m eating my words.  Sweet girl has been a little fussy while she’s awake during the past couple of weeks and that’s why it’s taken me so long to get this post up…and any post at all.  No complaining though and I’m not apologizing because it’s family over blogging but I will say that, while these days are fleeting and I’m trying to soak them up as much as possible, when those days when a routine becomes the norm again come, they will not be unwelcome.

Anyway…  

Our DIY, tufted headboard headboard is finito and we are loving it.  We have upped the comfort anty 1000% over our previous headboard:

Now it’s behind with the old and in front with the new.

In case you missed it, the tutorial for the tufted back of the headboard can be found here. 

The inspiration for the arms of our new headboard was taken from those on this headboard, made by Sarah at Sarah M. Dorsey Designs.  I fell in love with the curves at the top of the arms at first sight.  She gave instructions on how to make them for the most part, which you can read about in her post about them, and in this post I go into more detail showing how we made them.

Sarah used a 2 x 8 and a 1 x 8 for each arm.  We needed a 2 x 10 and a 1 x 10, a tad wider than those Sarah used since we were retrofitting the headboard to our existing headboard.  So, instead of getting two boards and screwing them together, we cut costs by using three.  (It saved us about $10 to do it this way and the look is no different.)

We used:
1 - 2 x 10 (cut in half lenthwise to make them each about 60 inches long)
1 – 1 x 6 (also cut in half)
1 – 1 x 4 (also cut in half)  The wood shown in the above picture is everything needed for one arm.  Like I mentioned above, the boards we bought we had cut in half in-store as they were each 10 feet long and we needed them to be 5 feet long as each arm needed to be 5 feet tall.

We placed the wood together like so to create two, wide arms.

Anthony used wood screws* that were almost as long as the boards were wide to screw everything together.  The screws needed to be long enough that they’d securely hold the boards together but not too long that the points came out the other side. 

In screwing the boards together, we had to be careful not to place the screws where we’d be cutting the design out of the top of each arm.  If you’re only interested in making two rectangular arms, you won’t need to worry about screw placement.

Once the boards were all one big piece, I labeled each side of the arm – back, front, and top.  I did this because the 2 x 10 was slightly deeper than the other two boards put together (you can kind of see it in the above picture) so one side of the arm was flush (front) and the other wasn’t (back).   Also, I wanted the 1 x 6 board to be at the front, inside of the arm.  In case you would be able to see where the two one-inch boards met through the fabric later, by placing the 1 x 6 board in front, the seam would likely be covered up by the tufted padding of the back of the headboard later.  (Turns out that the seam between boards is not noticeable under the fabric at all.)

Next up was creating the curved design at the top of each arm.  First, I drew the design on a piece of thick paper and then I traced it onto the wood.

Like Sarah did, I used the lid of a jar to create the rounded parts and then drew a straight horizontal line to connect them.  The top rounded part is five inches wide (wider than Sarah’s since we had to accomodate for retrofitting) and the straight line and curve at the front are each 2.5 inches wide.

A good friend of ours cut the design out for me using his jigsaw (thanks Matt!)  Anthony has a rotozip he was going to use but the blade wasn’t long enough to cut through both boards.  Once the design was cut out, Anthony pre-drilled three holes at back of each arm where they would be attached to the back of the headboard.  More on that later.

The next step was wrapping fabric around the inside of each arm so that the arms could be attached to the back of the headboard and then finished.  I cut out two rectangular panels of the same gray fabric used on the tufted back – each panel was wide enough to be stapled at the back and wrapped around the entire arm to be stapled at the opposite back and was also long enough that it extended an inch past the ends of each arm on the top and bottom.  I used two yards of fabric to finish both arms bringing the grand total in fabric to five yards for the entire headboard. 

To start, Anthony laid the fabric on the ground and then placed the wood arm we were working on on top of it, placing it close enough to one edge that there was enough fabric left to be pulled around and stapled.  Then he pulled the fabric taught and up and over the other side of the fabric. 
(Note:  At this point, the insides of the arms needed to be stapled at the back so we had to pay close attention to which side of the wood we were laying on the ground and which side we were stapling.)

Then he stapled the fabric to the back of the inside of the arm. 
(Note:  You’ll want to make sure the grain of the fabric is straight while it’s wrapped around the arm for a professional look.  It should be running horizontally across the side of the arm and/or vertically up and down.  As long as you initially cut the fabric panels along the grain, this should be easy to accomplish.)

Here’s what an arm (in this case, the left arm if you’re looking at the headboard) will look like once the inside is stapled:The fabric will hang loose but will be attached at the back the entire length of the arm.

So that the fabric stayed put while attaching the arm to the headboard, Anthony grabbed a small scissors and stuck the pointed ends into the holes he pre-drilled earlier (the holes that would hold screws that attach the arms to the headboard).

We also realized last minute that we should get the fabric at the bottom of the arms situated before attaching them since we’d be attaching them standing up.  To do this, we stapled the fabric at the bottom of each arm to the outside back about six inches up the arm.  Then Anthony whipped out his present wrapping skills, folding the fabric like so on the bottom of each arm and stapling it:

I’ll have another post coming later that shows how we attached the new headboard to our existing headboard but at this point in the project, we had the help of another friend (thanks Dan!) to get the arms onto the back.  (We didn’t realize how heavy the headboard was going to be so, being postpartum a couple of weeks, I couldn’t help like I normally would.) Basically, Dan held the back of the headboard in place while Anthony held the arms, one-by-one, onto each side of the headboard and screwed them on.  Once both arms were attached, they looked like this:

You can see here how the arms and back were held together; where the screws were placed:

Next, we finished wrapping the fabric around the front and outside of each arm, stapling at the back.

Now it gets a little tricky with the design at the top.  To polish off this part, Ifirst folded down the excess fabric at the top of each arm and stapled it to the back.

The arms now looked like this:

Then, I trimmed away the fabric around the design, making sure there was an inch of excess above and beyond the top of the design.

The fabric had to be wrapped onto the design but because of the curves, I had to cut notches around each curve and corner so it could be folded nicely.  So, I basically cut triangles with the points almost touching the wood of the arm around each curve and into each corner.  I made sure I cut the triangle points deep enough that they’d allow the fabric to be folded without being pulled but not too deep that they went into the side of the arm, exposing the wood beneath.

Next, Anthony helped me staple each flap around the curves down – I held them down tightly and he stapled.  (Tip:  If a staple doesn’t go in perfectly; if it sticks out a little, just grab a hammer and hammer it flat.)

The last thing I needed to do to finish off the arms was to make a strip of fabric to cover the front of each.  To make these strips, I cut out two long, narrow rectangles out of what was left of the fabric we used to wrap the arms in.  The front of each arm measured 2.5 inches wide so I cut the rectangles to be 4.5 inches wide so that I could have a finished, one-inch hem on each side.  Length-wise, I cut them so that I had plenty of fabric left to be able to fold it over and under the tops and bottoms of each arm.  That made them about 70 inches long.

Using my quilting square* was super helpful in making sure I was measuring and cutting straight edges.  I drew four lines onto what would be my strips of fabric – two the width of the entire strip pre-hem to show where to cut them out of the fabric remnant and two where I’d fold to make the hem.

To finish the strips, I used no-sew, iron-on hem tape*.  I placed the hem tape on the inside of the fold line on one side, ironed it, and did the same to the other side.   

To get the strip on its arm, I first cut a small piece of hem tape a little shorter than the width of the front of the arm, placed it at the top of the arm, and ironed on the strip of fabric so that it was secured by the hem tape.

I wanted to glue most of the strip on because I wasn’t sure I had enough hem tape to iron it on so by placing that small piece of iron-on tape at the top, the strip was held in place and allowed the glue I used to dry without moving.  I did the same thing with a small piece of iron-on tape to the flat part between the two curves of the design at the top of each arm and also placed one right below the second curve; right on the front, flat part of the arm.

To glue the strips on, I ran two small lines of glue down the middle sides of each side of the front of the arm like so:(I used this fabric glue but any craft glue and even hot glue will work.  Hot glue just requires a lot of careful gluing so it doesn’t get on the fabric where it’d be tough to remove.)

I did it this way all the way down.  There was extra fabric at the bottom of the arms that we just folded under the arm – I folded under while Anthony held the headboard off the ground.  One day, when we move and have to take the bed apart, we’ll staple them down but until then, no one will ever know they’re not secured underneath so shhhhh…

Ta-daaaaa!  That is IT!

It cost us a little under $100 to make this headboard and if we’d have had to buy the foam for it, it would still only have rung in at around $130.  Not too shabby, eh?  Not too shabby at all.  :D   

Right after we finished it, I got really excited and quickly cranked out two new pillow covers for the euro pillows on the bed plus some matching faux roman shades that you might’ve noticed.  I stole the smaller square pillows from the living room to add some more color but really I’m still sulking over the fact that the fabric I wanted to make covers out of for those costs $230 PER YARD.  No way Hosea.  It’s this orangerie floral by Designers Guild…
…and if I ever find a remnant that is majorly, and I mean majorly discounted, I will pounce.  Until then, I’ll forever (but hopefully not) be on the look-out for a similar print and pattern.

So, the headboard is done but what about the footboard?  Well, eventually I’d love to sand and restain it and I’m toying with the idea of upholstering and tufting the flat part in between the two posts but for now, there are bigger project fish to fry in this casa but don’t be suprised if that post pops up one day in the future.  

There are still a lot of things I want to get done in our room before we call it “done” – painting and adding legs to the nightstands, painting the dressers, painting or restaining our desk and bookshelf, hanging stuff on the walls, making a West Elm chandelier knock-off that I’ve had on the agenda for over a year now, blah, blah, blah…  Basically, the room will see it’s final state in a few years at the rate we move.  So it goes and so it is. 

But, now that I have a plush surface to sink my spine into when stress strikes, I don’t care how long it takes.  Slow and steady wins the home decor race…or maybe that’s just an excuse for decoristas with kids.  ;)

Stay tuned for a quick post on how we attached this headboard to our existing, thrifted bed frame.

Adios.  :)

*Affiliate link to product we purchased or something similar to what we purchased to make this headboard.  If you click and buy, we will get a small commission.  Thank you for helping us keep the lights on around here!  :)

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Gianna Clare: A Birth Story

To epidural or not to epidural?

That was the question I had been trying to decide for weeks before grrlfrran made her arrival.  I love epidurals for the obvious reason – no pain – but was all the pushing and the horrid recovery after-birth I get along with it all worth it?  When I wasn’t in labor, it wasn’t worth it.  Of course I’d go sans epidural this time so that I could feel what I was doing when I had to push and then after the baby was born, there’d be no shaking or nausea and I’d just be able to sit and enjoy the child outside my womb.  But during labor, it was worth it, very worth it.  Or maybe I just didn’t care because my mind and body were reeling in pain.  So what was the outcome now tied to that looming question for this third labor of mine?  What ended up happening?  Read on, my friends…

The day was June 2nd.  We had scheduled an induction because, long story short, my doctor was going on a trip a few days later (also a few days before my due date) and he’s just so great that I really didn’t want anyone else to deliver our fourth.  I know it sounds crazy maybe but he really is just that great and I trust him with my life…and the life of my kids, obviously.  Of course, if all signs pointed to baby girl not being ready June 2nd at 39 weeks, we’d hold off and wait but thankfully, everything looked just peachy.  I had been three centimeters dilated for a couple of weeks and, at 39 weeks, chances are the babe inside wasn’t too big to fit through these tiny hips.  Yes, that is unfortunately a concern for little ‘ole me here.  I envy you women with hips.  I’ve always wanted them but wasn’t blessed with ‘em so I’ll just keeping faking them with side pockets and gathered dresses. 

So, we waltzed in to the labor and delivery ward bright and early that Thursday morning (6:45 am) and were led to our room where we settled in and I tossed on the ever-so-stylish ‘gown’…though why they call it a ‘gown’ is beyond me.

We sat for  an hour, chatting with my nurse (she was the sweetest!), and flipping through channels on the telee.  I got prepped for baby landing – IV and monitor belts.  I was started on pitocin around 8ish and it was also at that time that my doc came in and unleashed the deluge…aka broke my water.  The contractions started slowly and then got more and more intense…blah, blah, blah.  Normal birthing stuff.  More intense, more intense, more intense, ow, ow, ow, more intense.  At some point, the mind games started and I began to wonder why the heck I was doing this without an epidural.  “The awful symptoms.  Ouch!  The not-being-able-to-feel-how-to-push.  Owwww!  Ugh.  Is it worth it?!  Owwwwww!!!  Yes.  Owwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!!  No.  I’m dying.  That one was bad.  Really bad.  I don’t think I have the willpower…yes I do.  Nope.  I don’t…”

Somewhere during the beginning of the whole process my nurse noticed that, after every contraction, the baby’s heart beat was just dropping off.  She wasn’t overly concerned but she was concerned enough to have me lay on my side while I labored just in case baby girl was having issues with the contractions.  Such a huge bummer because I was hoping so much to be able to walk around while I labored.  I’ve heard it makes it a tad easier if you can move around and gives you some sort of distraction.  Of course, the baby’s health outweighs any and all of my walking wishes but still, it was unfortunate.  Either way, on my side I went and there I stayed.  I got to know the bedside buttons real well – lumbar:  inflate or deflate, raise, lower, call nurse, etc…

The contractions came and went like they do and all the while, I was texting back and forth with my sisters and some close friends.  I rely on my sister Farrah for all things life and motherhood and she quickly became my birthing coach during the process…

I mean, who needs birthing classes?  Not this mom.  ;)  (But really though, we’ve never been to one.  Ha!)

At 9:45, my nurse checked my dilation.  I had to be at least 7-8 centimeters.  HAD to.  “Let’s see…you’re about five centimeters”.  Oh, heck no.  Heck.  No.  All that pain for two measly centimeters?!  No, no, no.  Epidural pa-lease!!!! 

And just like that, my nurse wheeled in the epidural meds and cart and called the anesthesiologist.  The time was 10:01 (I only know the time because my nurse told me afterwards…gazing at the clock was theee last thing I was doing amidst all my turmoil.)  Unlike the anethesiologist at Sebastian’s birth, this one came within minutes.

This is where things get a little dicey as far as my memory goes.  My memory is usually pretty perky but with the pain that I was experiencing, I felt like I had slipped into this half out-of-body, half madness state of mind.  Seriously.  It was so weird.  I heard bits and pieces of what was going on around me but a lot of what I know is from talking to the nurse afterwards and via Anthony’s perspective.  What I know from all that is this…

The anethesiologist came in and I had to sit up and hunch over so that he could get the IV in.  The contractions were coming really close together – within mere seconds of eachother – and so during one of those seconds of relative calm, I pulled myself to a sit and hunched over right as another contraction came on and I was once again a raving lunatic.  Ok, so maybe I wasn’t raving but I was definitely on the verge of bawling and babbling on in pain.  (All you single ladies and future mothers, doesn’t this make you want to have tons of kids?!  I know…so sorry.  It’s so worth it though.  Promise.)  All of a sudden, as I sat in pain, I felt like my insides were falling out…errr, more like shooting out in a fury.  I had to push.  I wasn’t in control of my body anymore and my body had to push and so it was.  It was so very bizarre.  I managed to voice my concerns to all the ears in the room and right then, I vaguely remember hearing the anethesiologist say “She’s not going to make it.  I’m not going to be able to do this”…as in, this baby was coming.  Like now.  This baby was coming now.  There was zero time for an epidural.

I slumped back down onto my side and the urge to push subsided…for ten seconds until there it was again.  My nurse took a peek and exclaimed that I was, in fact, 10 centimeters dilated but also she said “don’t push, the doctor is on his way”.  “Act like you’re blowing through a straw whenever you feel like you have to push.”  Ok, a straw.  A straw.  I mean, what does a straw even look like at this point in my lunacy.  Who has time to think about that when your insides are exploding?!  Oh but wait, oh yes, a straw!  Blowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww…but nooooooooooooo, my body is still pushing.  I can’t stop it.  Or wait, it was more like NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, MY BODY IS STILL PUSHING!!!!!!!!!!  I CAN’T STOP IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And then a few seconds of semi-calm until, once again, DON’T PUSH BUTICAN’TNOTPUSH!!!!!!!!!

And then a few more seconds of semi-calm and you know what happened.  Yep, my body took over and I couldn’t stop the pushing.  Except this third time, the nurses had me roll onto my back and two pushes later, Gianna was born.

And two minutes after that, my doctor walked in.  He said if the elevator hadn’t taken so long, he would’ve made it.  Haha!  Since it was mid-morning, he was literally a building away seeing patients but Gianna came so quickly that a building away wasn’t close enough.  Thankfully, there weren’t any complications so doc not being there was sad but not a huge problem (Sebastian was sideways and semi-stuck so you just never know).  He still monitored this bitty babe her entire 8.9 months in utero and for that, we will always be grateful.  <3

Gianna was on this side of my skin and the routine newborn process had begun.  I was so very grateful that my mind had returned to reality and I could savor those first moments without the shaking and nausea that the epidural would have brought.  I don’t know how not having it really affected the rest of my recovery but, let me tell you, I was ready to get up and at ‘em a half hour after she was born.  It was amazing.  That was a blessing too, especially since Anthony wasn’t able to stay the night in the hospital with me.  He had to get back to our other three.

Speaking of our other three, we managed to get a snapshot of their first visit with their new baby sister, who at this point in time was still nameless.
Their smiles lit up the room upon their entrance; seeing this wee babe who was no longer in mommy’s tummy (even though I fielded lots of questions about what or who was still in mommy’s tummy since it just got “a little smaller”.  Ultimately, they all concluded mommy’s tummy was filled with milk for the baby.  Common sense seekers, our kids.) 

LIke I said, I was ready to get going pretty quickly post-birth but it wasn’t because the pain had disappeared.  By some small miracle, I didn’t tear like I did with our other kids but still, pushing a watermelon out of a tailpipe doesn’t really warrant a three-second, full recovery.  I’m sure you probably know or can just about imagine.  I was sore but mobile enough to change diapers and grab Gianna out of her bassinet. 

Gianna and I got permission to go home the next day and man, I was elated.  There’s no place like home to recover and plus, sitting in a hospital room by yourself is b-o-r-i-n-g.  There’s only so much that social media browsing and the boob tube can do for ya there.  I had cabin fever the minute Anthony left to go back home.

Anyway, that’s the story of how Gianna was born and I’ve never wished for a video of a birthing event, but this one I do.  My mind is so foggy about it all that I’d love to see how things went down.  #literally  The nurses told me after that they were getting a big kick out of me when, everytime I’d feel like I had to push, I’d say “nooooo!”, like that alone could hold her in.  I guess mind over matter is not a skill I have.  Anthony said I kept saying “Oh no you guys!” when a contraction was coming on towards the end.  Lunatic, I tell ya.

Whatever.  I’ll own it.  Pain does funny things to people.

Since her birthday, things have been awesome and oh-so-smooth with a fourth kid around.  Anthony’s job allows him to work from home if he needs to so he did just that for two weeks and those two weeks were amazing.  I didn’t have to lift a finger even though I wanted to.  I’m not one of those people who can just sit around for hours on end so I was itching to do something.  I know you all probably think I’m crazy but I felt like the nesting bug bit me post-pregnancy and I was dying to get up and get stuff done, all with a newborn strapped to my person.  I didn’t get much done thanks to still being sore the week after but I did get to help Anthony finish our headboard and I took lots of pictures of our newest during a couple of DIY photo shoots while the ‘big’ kids were napping.

Right now, I’m soaking up the newborn phase.  I’ve never really liked this stage, mainly because everytime we’ve had a newborn or two around, it’s been crazy – I mean we started with two at once and then had three under 18 months.  This time it’s still crazy but we’ve got three semi-independent older kids plus that newborn who is an awesome sleeper compared to her elders.  I mean, in all things she’s pretty much the easiest baby we’ve had.  She has her moments but those moments are so much easier to deal with and, dare I say savor, because we aren’t a pair of exhausted care-takers who haven’t showered in weeks and who are surviving on coffee.

And now I should probably go pound my fists against a solid surface of the tree variety…

Adios!

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Want more newborns?  Go meet two handsome misters, Blaise and Fred, brought here by Susan and Ana.  :) 

You Know You’re a Twin Parent When…

Psst…a HUGE thank you to those who are helping me fill empty blog space while we widdle away at the first weeks with our newest little sprout!  I’ll be tossing a few of these posts in with some of my own in the coming weeks while we slowly get used to life with four little ones around.  It’s been such a smooth transition thus far but I know that having Anthony home plus a sleepy newborn is a big, big part of why things seem like they haven’t changed so I’m bracing myself for when he goes back to work and Gianna gets older and needs more attention but right now, I’m savoring it.  We’re all savoring it.  :)

So, without further ado…

I besought a bunch of twin moms in a Facebook group I’m a part of to finish this statement – You know you’re a twin mom/parent when… – and they didn’t disappoint.  Maybe you can add to it (the comments section is open for business!) and maybe you have no clue but can only imagine.  Either way, life with twins is, well, interesting and busy and chaotic at times and wonderful and a whole bunch of other adjectives.
 

…those biceps can’t be attributed to a swanky gym membership.

…you almost fainted (or did faint) at the ultrasound that revealed their existence.

...someone sends ONE gift from Amazon and you think, "riiiight...they'll just share it...cause that's a possibility..."  -Laura

…your house looks like a poorly run daycare…or is that just me?  -Krissy
  Nope, not just you Krissy. 

…you spend inordinate amounts of time and energy trying to figure out the best way to cram two cribs/wardrobes/swings/sets of whatever it may be into one tiny room.

…you hear one infant twin cry in the middle of the night and leap out of bed to grab her like your pants are on fire lest she wake her sidekick.

…you get one twin fed and sawing logs and rest your head against your pillow in bliss…for three seconds until the other one starts up.

…you tell someone you're expecting boy/girl twins and they ask, "oh are they fraternal or identical?" –Kristy

...someone says, "two for the price of one!" and you laugh to yourself because that's totally not a thing. –Laura
-Yes! The only exception in my experience was labor pains which actually were sort of two-for-one. But the rest has totally been two for the price of more than two! –Margaret

…someone lists ALL the ways to tell your identical twins apart, and you smile and adjust the colored necklaces they HAVE to wear. – Laura

…you refer to everyone's unborn child as "they". –Nicole

…you get the two-word comment “double-trouble” by strangers in public and you laugh and say “twice as nice”…and then you cry inside because double-trouble is right on.

…’damage control’ takes on a whole new meaning…and so does damage.

…you own 3 or more double strollers. –Krissy

…people who have multiple kids close in age compare that to having twins ---- nope. Sorry. Your 1 year old can hold their own bottle! –Nichole

…you have to subdue the shock of unsuspecting pregnant strangers after your 4-year-old points to their belly and exclaims, "two babies" because he thinks all pregnancies result in two.  No, he is not psychic nor prophetic, we just have twins babies at home. –Keeli

…your three year old asks of anyone with a newborn, "why do they only have one baby?" –Margaret

…you hoard anything anyone is giving away because the twins could use it. –Marisol

…you've sat on a dirty diaper just to get your other baby not to open and play in it. –Keeli

…you resist the urge to roll your eyes when people ask "Are they twins?" about your identical twins, followed by "one girl & one boy?" when you have them dressed alike. –Emily

…you are so sleep deprived that a 30 minute nap is the same length as a chunks of sleep you get through the night. –Emily

…you are jealous listening to others' complaints about getting anything over 3 hrs of sleep. –Emily
-Or want to throat-punch the person that says they're tired. Haha. –Marisol

 …you struggle with whether you should dress them identially or just coordinate or just totally different.  And you get asked a lot which method you prefer.

…people ask "were you trying for twins?”  Yep!  We are super talented!  We can have twins on demand. –Nichole

...you need to call ahead to a restaurant to reserve two high chairs. (On the rare occasion we all go out.)
...you have a backup plan for every possible scenario.
...you used to laugh silently at other parents using leashes on their one kid.  (I don't do this, but I'm pretty sure I'll consider it.)
...you buy four of everything in case two of those things get lost.
...you plan your purchases based on the possible resale value of all furniture, accessories, toys, and clothes.
...you feel like an expert when people genuinely ask you how you do it. –Marisol

…you cram all of your purchases in the bottom basket of a double stroller because a cart won't hold more than one infant carrier.  -Brooke

…your heart is twice as big, your dreams twice as high, and your wishes twice as spectacular.

We wouldn’t trade them for the world, our twins.

…most of the time anyway.  ;)

Introducing…

If I could describe her birth in four words, they’d be “whoa, what just happened?”  When I get to the state of mind when I can actually do all that describing, I’ll type-type-type it up like a blog-blog-blogger does.  Until then, I’ll hopefully be logging on with a few guest post type things and we’ll be (very, very slowly) finishing up the headboard that we didn’t finish before Gianna graced us with her presence.  :)

I hope you’re all having a fantastic weekend!

DIY Tufted Headboard: Part I

(The above pic in an ‘in process’ one – the tufts weren’t smoothed yet nor were the buttons on but I had to give it a trial run and whoa, doesn’t it look gooood even half done?!)

Oh man, I can’t wait to share this tutorial with you guys.  Let me preface this whole project tutorial with this though – it might seem super overwhelming and intimidating.  The thought of making a tufted headboard from scratch seemed really far-fetched for me even.  When you look at your inspiration pictures and then you take a gander at some tutorials, it can get to be too much and the idea can easily seem like one for the go-getter DIYers who have every tool imaginable.  But, let me shove this into your brain - you can do this.  Anyone can do this.  Take it step by step and don’t think about the final product until you’re almost done.  Yes, this is something you can do with a whole day’s time.  But it’s also something that you can do over a period of a couple of weeks, like us, by doing a step per day and then all of a sudden, you’ve built yourself a headboard that you didn’t even think you could.  Easy does it.

First, find your inspiration.  Figure out what you want.  Pinterest is a great place to start.  I started a pin board for our master bedroom, the room where this headboard is going, so all my headboard dreams are tucked away there.

After I pinned inspiration pictures, I then hunted down tutorials on how to get what I wanted.  This tutorial by Kristi at Addicted 2 Decorating on how to diamond tuft is, by far, the best I could find.  Even though her tutorial is for an ottoman, you use the same steps as you would a headboard.  Her pictures and instructions are so thorough and, when you have no clue how to build a headboard from scratch like me, detailed instructions are so appreciated.  I’ll be linking back to her a few times during the tutorial just because it’s so great.

So, armed with inspiration and instructions,  we got started.  (Note:  This post is all about the tufted back of our headboard.  We’re in the process of adding arms to each side of the back and then retrofitting it to our current bed but those will each be detailed in separate posts.  You can whip up a headboard just like the one I’m about to write about and call it done in the end, sans arms and retrofitting, because it can definitely hold it’s own.)

As with any project, first we figured out what we needed to get ‘er done; you know, the supplies.  From start to finish, all we used were a slab of foam, a piece of plywood, a few pieces of wood boards, a sharpie pen, scissors, a drill (a screwdriver would work too; it’d just be a little more work), fabric, batting, screws, washers, upholstery buttons, glue, staples, and a staple gun.  It’s a good amount of stuff but I bet you have half of it at home and the other half is easily (and cheaply) attainable.

Let’s break down those supplies a tad though first.
Plywood.  We bought ours from Lowe’s and guess what?  They cut it for free (Home Depot does too!)  Yep.  That means you don’t need a saw of any sort.  Go in, grab a piece of 1/2 plywood, give them your measurements, and let them cut it.  We got ours cut 61 5/8” by 32”.  Our bed is a queen-size and a standard queen-sized bed is 60” wide but since we’re retrofitting the headboard to our existing bed frame, which is a tad wider than the mattress, we added a few inches.  When you’re measuring, make sure you account for the size of your bed frame instead of the size of your mattress.  Or instead of using plywood, you could scour your local thrift stores and/or resale sites to find a simple queen headboard that you could easily reupholster.  I saw this one advertised at a local thrift store here last week:
 
Foam. 
My Aunt had this three-inch thick eggshell mattress topper laying around that she wasn’t using so she let us have it to use for this project, saving us a good chunk of the project cost.  If you don’t have an Aunt with a spare piece of foam, Home Depot sells this multi-purpose foam pad that’s a lot more affordable than the foam you’ll find at fabric stores.  However, it’s only 24” wide (or tall if we’re talking headboards) so if you want something taller, you might need two (and then you’ll have a bunch leftover for another project).  

Wood Supports.  For added stability and to make your edges look a little beefier, you’ll want to frame out the back of your plywood with a few pieces of 1 x 4.  So, you’ll need to get four pieces cut (remember to get them cut at the store) that can be screwed along the perimeter of the back edges like Sarah at Sarah M. Dorsey Designs did to the back of her DIY headboard here.  Once again, we lucked out because some good friends of ours were tossing some wood out that we salvaged for the supports on the back of ours (thank you Alford’s!)

Fabric.  Kristi (Addicted 2 Decorating) recommends using a woven fabric so that it doesn’t twist while you’re screwing in your tufts.  I agree that using a woven fabric would probably keeping the twisting to a minimum, but I couldn’t find a woven fabric in my under $10/yard budget.  I did find this linen blend fabric on sale at JoAnn fabrics though that was exactly the color we were going for and it worked great!  I used about three yards of it for the back of the headboard.  We did toy with using a jewel green fabric that I have in my stash but, after hanging it on the wall behind our bed for a day to see if it jived, we decided we really just wanted a neutral that would work with any color decor we went with in the future.  Maybe we’ll use the green to make the girls’ a headboard someday.  :)  To soften the linen fabric up a tad, I tossed it in the wash quick with a little bit of detergent and some fabric softener and it came out just right. 

Batting.  In my opinion, batting is optional.  It does give a little bit more fluff, smooths everything out (if need be), and helps protect the fabric from ripping when it’s pulled over the corners.  But, if you sand down the corners to make them less pointed, that would help the fabric stay intact.  For our headboard, I did use batting though I’m not sure if I will next time.  I bought this full-sized package of batting (with a coupon) to use for this and a couple of other upholstering projects we have on our to-do list.
 
Buttons.
We used these size 30 cover buttons for this project (purchased at JoAnn’s with a 50% coupon) and they are 3/4” in diameter, the perfect size to fit right over the… 

Screws and Washers.
Instead of going the typical threaded button route, we used screws and washers to get our tufts, using Kristi’s genius tutorial.  For our headboard we needed 30 #8 screws and the same amount of #10 washers.  If you’re going with larger buttons, you’ll just have to make sure you use larger washers; small enough that they won’t peep out from under your buttons but large enough that they’ll allow the button to slide down into your tuft and sit upon them.

Drill or Screwdriver.  If you’re going to have any tool on hand, I’d say a drill should be it.  We have the older model of this one* and it’s been our trusty go-to tool for going on ten years.  You can use a screwdriver to get those tufts if you don’t have a drill though, but it will definitely be a little more time-consuming.

Glue.  Gorilla Glue*, Liquid Nails* (we used this on our ottoman buttons), E6000*  – any of those would work to glue the buttons onto the screws and washers.  Hot glue would work, though if you accidentally get it anywhere that you don’t want it, it’s difficult to remove so I’d say stay away from it.  I actually used Aleene’s OK To Wash-It glue* because I had it laying around and it’s stuck good so far.  We’ll see what time says though.  In addition to glue for the buttons, you’ll also want some to attach the foam to the plywood while you work.  A spray adhesive like this one I’ve used in the past would work well (or Elmer’s if you’re lazy like me).

Staple Gun and Staples.  To attach the fabric to the back of your headboard you’ll need to use a staple gun.  We have and used this one* along with 5/16 staples.

Onto the process…
First, I cut the foam to the size of the plywood.  I wanted the eggshell side of my foam to be against the plywood and the smooth side closest to the fabric but to cut the foam, it was easiest to slice it with the smooth side up.  So, lining up one corner and making sure both sides out from that corner were in near perfect alignment…
I traced around the other two edges with a sharpie.

I also marked which was was up on the foam and on the plywood just in case the plywood wasn’t cut into an exact rectangle.  It probably wouldn’t matter too much if things got flipped though.

Then I grabbed a pair of scissors and cut out the foam along the sharpied line.  A serrated knife or an electric knife would also work to cut out the foam.

Next, I marked out where the buttons would go by just measuring and placing +’s over each spot.

The marking was easy.  Figuring out how spaced I wanted the buttons was the hardest thing about this whole headboard.  Seriously, it took me three days of naptime brainstorming to get to the end decision.  I blame it all on the fact that I couldn’t think with this lack of pregnant energy for the life of me and maybe, just maybe, I was overthinking it all to begin with.

It wasn’t just the measuring that was hard, it was deciding on the amount of buttons I needed to achieve the look I was going for.  I didn’t want a ton of buttons like this headboard from Target:

But I didn’t want too few like this one from West Elm:

Both of those headboards are beautiful but just not what I had in mind for our tufted beaut.

The tufting pattern I had in my head was a series of equilateral triangles at the points of which would be the buttons.  I wanted the distance from each button to be the same – across and diagonally.  That meant I had to go back to middle school to figure out the height of the triangle in order to figure out how much space would be between rows.  I know, too much thinking.  Told ya.  In the end, I came up with a design where each button is 7.5” apart horizontally and each row of buttons is 7” apart (it measured a little under 7” but I rounded up for simplicities sake.)  That meant that, on our queen-sized board, I had two rows with seven buttons across and two rows with eight.  It was helpful to use a piece of rectangular paper cut to scale to figure this all out before I started marking up the foam.  After the plan was made on paper, it was time to hit up the foam.  To mark out the buttons, I started at the top of the foam and marked the first row 7.5” from the top - I made a small mark 7.5” down on each side of the foam and then, using a tape measure as a straight edge, connected my two dots to give me that entire row.  Then I found the center of the foam (the entire width or 61 5/8 divided by 2), marked that, and that gave me the halfway point between the two middle buttons on the first row.  Once I got those marked out, I just made marks every 7.5” each way and then measured out the second line the same way except that the buttons this time were staggered so that the middle mark I made was where a button would go.  I hope that makes a whole lot of sense to you all!  It might be more helpful to draw out a grid on your foam – the columns and rows – and then place your button marks on the intersecting lines.

Once I was done marking out the buttons, I put the whole slab up on the bed to quell the fear that I had too few or too many buttons.  Color me a paranoid perfectionist, I guess.     

Next up was cutting out holes in the foam where each button would go to help them sink down into the foam with the fabric, giving that deep-tufted look.  To do this I just stabbed the points of a small pair of scissors into the foam and cut out a square that was about an inch wide on each side; just wide enough for my 3/4” buttons to slide right in.

At this point, the foam was ready.  Before it could be attached to the plywood though, we needed to frame out the back of the plywood with those pieces of 1 x 4.  Since we are retrofitting our headboard to our current bed frame, ours looks a little different on the back than if you’re just going to attach your headboard to the wall behind your bed.  You could also make this headboard to attach to a metal bed frame as well by the addition of some wood legs that extend from the bottom of the headboard down to the frame itself.  Cover those legs with fabric before you attach and call it good.  I’ll have a retrofitting tutorial up here hopefully in the next few weeks.

If you’re going to attach yours to the wall, frame it out like this…
…where the red rectangles represent the 1 x 4’s.  Just screw them in with some 1” – 1 1/4” screws; three or four in each board should do.  Then you can either buy a french cleat (this one* has great reviews on amazon.com) or make one to get it up on the wall securely.

Once framed, it was time to glue the foam to the plywood.  Gluing it to the plywood ensured that it didn’t move around while I laid the fabric on top or started on the tufting.  If you have the energy, the best way to do this would be to carry the foam and plywood outside and use some spray adhesive to get a good stick between the two.  I was at this stage of the headboard game when Anthony was at work one day though, so there was no carrying all this outside for mwah.  Instead, I went down Lazy Lane by swirling and then spreading with my fingers some Elmer’s glue I had lodged in the desk five feet away. I let the glue dry and it worked like a charm…and amazingly, I didn’t get any on our duvet cover.  (In case you’re wondering, I did this in our bedroom because anywhere else in the house is deemed unsafe from toddler hands and potential destruction.)
The next thing I did was cut shallow slits in the foam between each button.  I read about this trick on Little Green Notebook.  It’s a great idea, the point being that the fabric in between each button will just sink right down into the slit, making nice folds.
But I realized after that, since I was going to be placing batting over the foam it really wasn’t necessary and really, a waste of time.  If you’re going the no-batting route though, I’d definitely make those slits!

It was time now to get this thing covered, starting with the batting.  I laid my entire roll of batting over the top of the foam and cut it so that it would be able to be wrapped around a few inches and stapled on the back.  Then I just used my finger to poke holes in it over each button hole.
And now, the fabric.  To make sure I only used what I needed and so that I didn’t run out, I started at one end and corner of the headboard, placing the first tuft so that there was just enough fabric left on the outside edge to be wrapped around and stapled.

Down the first row I went, pairing a screw and washer and sinking it into each hole with the drill.

I didn’t drill pilot holes (holes made with a drill bit slightly smaller than the width of the threaded screw) into the plywood first and I kind of wished that I would have.  Since the tufts are so deep, you really can’t tell if one screw is a smidge higher or lower than it’s next door neighbor but some of them are a tad off (I mean, we’re talking like 1/8 of an inch).   Having a pre-drilled hole to place the tip of the screw in would’ve been helpful to keep everything nice and straight.


The key with using a linen fabric like I did is not drilling too much.  Drill until the screw isn’t super tight up against the foam and plywood; there should be enough space to easily stick your fingernail between the fabric and washer.  The tighter you screw into the plywood, the more likely your fabric is to twist, which you definitely don’t want.

Before I sunk each screw/washer, I pulled the fabric I needed for the tuft I was on from the loose fabric in the direction I was working; not from the button I had just planted.  Thank you again Kristi for the tip!  However, I was so concerned with not pulling fabric from the previous drilled button that I didn’t stop to make sure the fabric between buttons was smooth before I started on another screw.  So, a few of the spans between buttons is a little looser than I would have liked.  You live and learn, I guess.  Thankfully, I could tuck a good amount of excess fabric into the folds at the end but still, I made the mental note for next time.

Also before I sunk each screw/washer, I poked all of the fabric that would go into that tuft into the hole for it so that the screw wasn’t pulling fabric in while it was going in; all it was doing was securing what was already there.  In the picture below, all of the holes have screws in them except for the one on the bottom right.  The fabric is just sitting in that hole, waiting to be screwed in.

Once I had the top row done, I skipped a row and worked on the row with the tufts directly in line with the row I had just finished.  Then I went back and did the row in between and the bottom row.

Kristi really does the best job explaining the whole screwing and tufting process so I highly recommend heading over to her post for all the details on this part.

After all of the screws were in but before we stapled the fabric onto the back, I cut off all of the edges of the foam to get a diagonal edge vs. a sharp corner. This helps get a more rounded corner without having to really pull the fabric super tight.  Since I was using batting, I wasn’t concerned about cutting that edge so it was perfectly smooth so I just grabbed a scissors and went snipping away on each edge.


Now it all comes together by stapling the fabric to the back!  Can I just send you over to Kristi for detailed instructions one more time?  Her pictures are just so good.

The key is to make sure you’re keeping an eye on the weave of the fabric while you’re pulling the fabric to the back; making sure it’s all continuous before you staple.  There should be a fold going from each screw around to the back of the headboard.  The weave of the fabric on each side of the fold should meet and continue along the same line.  Here’s what the top of our headboard looks like stapled:The bottom and sides should look the same; a straight lines of folds leading from screw to the back.

Here’s what the back of our headboard looked like after all of the fabric was stapled:

And this is after I trimmed off all the extra fabric, which I saved to make the buttons with:

Then I did the test run because my middle name is Impatient.

So far, so good.  (That green trellis fabric I laid on the bed is going to be made into faux roman shades and will be perched over each window with the existing white curtains flanking the sides.  I’ll probably whip up a pillow cover or two with it as well just to tie everything together.  The other pillows are also getting new fabric and the nightstands are going white down the road.)

We’re almost done with this tutorial!  Hang in there! 

Onto the folds.  Basically, you want one, clean fold leading from button to button, not a jumble of them.  To get that one fold, all you have to do is make it by tucking all the fabric into one fold like so:

Can you see the difference in this before and after?
I feel like my fabric wrinkled a tad during the time between screwing in the tufts to making the folds (there were a couple of days in between those two steps) so I’d recommend fixing those folds right after you screw the tufts in.  I’ll probably end up going over the whole headboard with a quick ironing once we’re completely done to see if I can smooth those wrinkles out.

Now, the buttons!  Like I said above, I used the excess fabric I trimmed off after stapling to cover my buttons.  The button kit has great instructions on how to cover the buttons but basically you just use the included template to cut out as many circles as you’ll need for as many buttons as you’ll need to make.

Then you use the included tool to stack the fabric, button top, and back to easily get those professional looking buttons.  Since you’ll be gluing your buttons on, you’ll use the plain backs vs. the shank backs.  My only problem here (the same problem I had with our ottoman buttons the second time around) was that my fabric was too thick to get the backs pressed on with the tool.  So, while the fabric and button top are stacked like they should be in the tool, I placed a dab of glue onto the back of the button top and used a screwdriver to press on the back.  I pressed one end of the back and then, while holding my finger on that end, I used the screwdriver to press the opposite end until the back clicked on and then just worked my way around the rest of the back.

To glue the buttons to the screws, I put a dab of glue on the backs of all of the buttons and one-by-one, stuck each down into a tuft and onto a screw. 

And that’s it!  Onto making the arms, preferably before this baby gets here which means we better hop to that considering we might have mere hours left!  If you’re calling it done at this point in the headboard game, attach it with a cleat to the wall or add some legs and get it screwed onto your existing frame and then take advantage of the comfort that will follow.  My back and head cannot wait to rest upon the pillowy goodness.

.           .           . 

Stay tuned for tutorials on the arms and retrofitting…and a possible baby announcement! 

Update:  The headboard is done!  Check out the whole tutorial on how to make the arms here.

*Some of the products links in this post are affiliate links.  All of these things are products we purchased with our own cash but that we’ll get a small commission on if you purchase via my links.  Thank you for supporting us!