The DIY Project That Saved My Marriage

Let's start from the beginning. My husband seems to think that he can take up as much space as possible in the bed when he sleeps. And I'm not the cuddling type. Before sleeping sure, I'll cuddle for a bit. But once it's time to really drift off and sleep -- don't touch. This only really became a problem in the last 4 years or so. The fact that my husband technically goes into a coma when he sleeps adds to the problem. He'll fling himself over towards the middle of the bed and I'll inevitably get an elbow in the face or a knee in the back. Some nights I could push him and he'd roll away again, but some nights it wasn't happening. So guess who ended up on the couch? Well, I'd had enough. Who doesn't know how to sleep on their side of the bed? I will admit there were unkind words muttered at my husband's sleeping form at 2:00 a.m. more than once. 

Enter a local furniture store auction. King size mattresses being auctioned off. Plush, pillow-topped, king size goodness at an extremely affordable price. Let me add here that our queen size mattress was now 10 years old and had two canyons embedded in it. It was bad. When you wake up with a sore back due to your crap mattress it's time to remedy the situation. But I digress. Matt tromped into that auction and walked away with the answer to all of our problems. Or so we thought. 

Sure, a king size fluffy piece of heaven was great but we lacked the necessities to use it. Luckily a friend had an extra set of king sheets, which were the only major necessity. We took apart the queen, stuck it in the basement, and flopped our king on the floor. Enter Pinterest. I've spent the last year researching what kind of bed I would want. I knew I didn't want a footboard because they are obnoxious. It had to be something my handy Amish carpenter could make since the budget is always an issue. I narrowed it down to two options and then let Matt have the deciding vote. He has much more of an opinion than any man should when it homes to home decor. These were his choices:

Well, I was going to show you his choices but the embed thing isn't working {annoyed}.

Basically the choice was between a simple wooden headboard possibly painted a fun color, or an upholstered look that I found via Pottery Barn. He, surprisingly, went with upholstered.

Thus began the upholstering journey. This is getting long and wordy for a DIY post so I'll cut to the chase. We decided to use painters drop cloth as our fabric. It's a nice neutral color and it's CHEAP! For our king size we used one drop cloth = $20.00. The batting was $2.19/yd and we used about 14 yds. A lot of the wood was leftovers from Matt's shop but we'll end up paying for some of it, maybe $75.00. We used some muslin to help with the actual upholstering (thanks for the tip Kelly!), about 6 yds at $4.00/yd. So we now have a brand-new king size bed for under $200!

Building the frame...little man is all about helping daddy.

Upholstering the headboard...that sucker is fierce heavy. I strained my back helping Matt heft it around.

Supports and legs

When Matt started designing and building our one concern was transferability. We know we'll be moving again at least once, but chances are probably more than that. We didn't want some ginormous, heavy, awkward bed to try move from house to house. So, he built the bottom with cams that will just unscrew when we want to move it. I was going to take pictures of all of that stuff but he put it together last night when I was away as a surprise!

And here it is...my Pottery Barn copycat bed that I ADORE. 

After living without a headboard for a year this read-in-bed girl was thrilled to prop herself up again. Our old headboard was spindled (is that a word?) and so I was constantly adjusting my position when I wanted to lean against it...this is so much better! 

And you can tell I'm not a regular DIY blogger as there is no staging going on here. Yes, that is still our queen comforter in our king duvet cover. And I need to start looking at some fun Euro shams and other pillows. We need to get king size pillows and I need to decide what accent colors I want. And what I wouldn't give to get some stinkin' paint on the walls! I'm so not an all neutral, white-on-white, girl. But all in due time! There are a few adjustments to the bed that we might make but they can wait until we move and it gets taken apart again. 

And now sleep is sweet. Matt can fling around all he wants and I'm undisturbed. No more physical abuse in my sleep. I'm tempted to go climb in now with a book and some coffee and enjoy that headboard!