Upholstered and slipcovered headboards are so popular, and for good reason! They’re comfortable, and can go with many different furniture styles. Plus, when you get tired of the fabric, you can recover them. I’m going to show you the easy way I recovered my garage-sale headboard. Now, this is not a replacement for a professionally covered headboard, or a professional slipcover. But it is an easy and affordable way to change the look of an outdated headboard.

About ten years ago I found a fairly basic rectangular wooden headboard at a garage sale. My first instinct was to paint it black, which did make it look better, but it still wasn’t very comfortable for reading in bed. So I got the idea one day to faux-slipcover it. I could make it look like it had a slip on, but pad it underneath and attach it in place. It turned out really well, and lasted for a long time, but it was time for a new fabric. This is how I did it.

Many different headboards could work, you can alter the shape of the top a little with extra foam and padding, but the best ones are rectangular.  Mine had slats in it, but something like these would work:

*above from Ebay

*above from Target

What you’ll need is some foam and batting from a craft store, a staple gun, your fabric, and any ribbons you’ll want to use.  Make sure that the foam you get is not too thick, that it can easily wrap around something and be stapled into place.  You’ll want to measure your headboard from the top of what you’re recovering to the bottom where you’ll wrap it around and double it (for front and back), plus about 6-inches for overlap.  Remember, 1 yard = 3 feet.  I wrapped mine twice with foam, and about 2 to 3 times with batting.  Another good thing to remember is that most fabric comes 54-inches wide, which is great for a full or queen headboard.  Also, for our methods, you’ll want a fabric that doesn’t have a white selvedge edge.  You’ll want to use something that looks the same from edge to edge, like a solid linen.

Starting from the back side at the bottom, staple the foam in several places and then wrap up and over the front of the headboard and back to the bottom of the back side.  Repeat if you like.  Now you’ll do the same thing with the batting.  Once you have all that in place, you’ll use the same method for the fabric, making sure it covers all the batting and doesn’t gather. I also stapled the fabric a couple times in the front, below where the mattress will sit so it will be covered.  Then you can add ribbons on the sides as decoration – I hot glued mine into place and then tied them.

Here are the steps in pictures:

This was my headboard before.

Now I’m ready to add the ribbons and attach it back to my bed!