Modern Rustic Headboard

It’s FINALLY done! Oh, my goodness – this headboard has literally been 9 months in the making. Not because it took that long to make. It just acquired a lot of “rest” time!

I’m so happy with how our first furniture piece turned out. It was also super fun to work with Jason on the project and have his help.

The idea for the headboard started with a desire to use some of my favorite pieces of wood on something I would keep for the rest of my life. It was an eclectic group of black walnut, mahogany, and cherry. All different widths, lengths, and depths. Should be easy, right?

I started by laying all the pieces out on the garage floor. Then I figured I should make sure I had enough wood present to fit the bed. Hence the tape measures.

Once it was all figured out, I cut the pieces of wood that needed it. And wouldn’t you know – oh crud – I was about 2 inches short width wise. HOW did that happen when I measured!!! (We’ll skip that point for now). Thankfully – a mix of metal and wood is something I love, and my husband happens to know how to weld. Together we came up with the idea of framing the wood with steel and using that to mount the headboard to the bed frame.

Next, I found a piece of plywood to glue and nail the individual boards too.

Since the boards are all random, there were spots the plywood showed through. To get rid of those I used a permanent black marker and colored in the area so it would look dark. Of course, Jason suggested I just paint the entire piece of plywood black, but I was in a hurry to get it done and finished. That was about oh – 5 months ago! Lol

Staining the wood came next. I wanted some variation but not too much. The black walnut is by far my favorite, so those got just a clear coat. The mahogany was pretty by itself as well and the wood tone I was after, so those got a clear coat. The cherry is also nice, but was too light/red. Those were stained Special Walnut (I think, this was 4 months ago, memory is a bit rusty).

Once that was done, Jason was able to measure up and cut the frame. He is a very detailed oriented person when it comes to this type of stuff. So, he took the time to cut around the individual boards, which also provided a much snugger fit. Two support pieces were added in the back to help keep the wood in place. A couple nights worth of welding and it was done!

He also came up with this cool idea of 3D printing some feet for the headboard, so the metal didn’t sit right on the wood floor. He took some measurements, drew it up at work, printed them – and they fit perfectly the first time!

I could have left the steel as is and just sealed it. I liked the overall look/feel of “worn” steel. However, I couldn’t get past the obvious weld spots. To get the frame ready for painting I taped the wood along the edge of the frame using Frogg painters tape. Then I layered some newspaper on top and taped again with a random tape we had laying around.

Picked a can of paint like the color of the steel (Rustoleum’s Metallic Paint & Primer in Flat Soft Iron) and away we went! Finish with a clear satin coat on everything and I was in heaven!