You served my back well these past 7 years, while I Netflixed and Chilled. Chilled being a subjective term which in my world meant placing one hand on my junk, eating my fifth packet of prawn cocktail crisps and vaping away. Sometimes making love against it, alone and with a partner. However it was a given that sometime, that your skin would start peeling, you needed some love. You don’t ask for much I know, not even my snot I leave at the back of you in the middle of the night, and now my son’s. Still not sure where he learnt that from. Don’t worry though, I won’t throw you away and replace you, not because Daddy can’t afford it. Honest. It’s because he loves you.

So if you haven’t guessed already through that odd analogy, the faux leather of my headboard is fucked. White bits all over the place that isn’t dandruff or dead skin cells. This needed sorting out. The bed is a low Japanese style one, so no normal headboard could fit, was kind of bespoke. The company I got it from didn’t have any spares. Right, yes thats what I said in my head, right, let’s do this old school style and fix it myself. I will reupholster this thing myself. I mean just need some fabric and a staple gun right? Well yes actually, it’s not that difficult to do. The hardest part, actually deciding which fabric to use, as there are choices galore.

 

Usually interior design dictates, beds are meant to match or at least compliment the curtains. I have some nice curtains, silver black grey, proudly presenting a vision of elegance. So I headed to the shop I got them from, Paula Jayne Interiors. Highly recommend these guys, have a great range of fabrics, both contemporary and vintage. Unfortunately even though they remembered me, well there aren’t many of me in my town, they couldn’t find my order or the exact curtain fabric. However I took home some samples of fabric books they recommended, for me to peruse. They offered to do the reupholstery for me, however it was way too expensive. More than a new headboard would cost. Yes, it would have been a professional job, but just was not feasible economically. Decided to stick with my original plan and DIM (Do It Myself).

The plan was to get the fabric, staple over the old one, drill in some screws in the right places, glue on a few diamanté gems for the bling and a jobs a good ‘un. This video inspired me, and not because of just the backing music!

Upon settling on an ebony coloured fabric, because I am a secret goth, followed the video tutorial humming the same tune. Hit a couple of hitches on the way though. The wooden board within the headboard were of different thickness, so needed two different length screws to screw on. It was a pain to get some washers for the longer screws. So used to square nut for the longer ones, I was afraid the crease may end up different, but it was subtle enough not to matter. If you are going to do this, bear that in mind, also be gentle when drilling in the screws, as going in too far may rip the fabric past the screw and washer and its a pain to get out.

This was the first time I’ve ever done anything like this, as I usually screw things up. I just charge in, thinking in my head its easy then ruin things. However no matter how hard I tried, I still managed to get it completed and looks pretty awesome. Yes the difficulty level is low for any budding DIY interior designer but for someone like me, this was a proud moment of making something that will be used functionally and looks good. Sure, its early days 😉 Ciao!