Friday 17 March 2023
I have sort of made a headboard. Well, visualised? Conceived? I had the idea for the headboard based on another house we saw and how they had made a headboard which essentially created a wall to conceal the sloping wall that was down too low to be of use. That’s not an eloquent or clear way of describing it. I might even draw a picture (that was a reckless suggestion, I realised as I re-read this). Anyway, Mitch, our amazing handy man, came up with an idea for a headboard based on the photo I showed him (though their headboard-wall was a work of art with a massive piece of beautifully-carved wood). That is now in situ, and has been for the past four weeks or so. It is – was – just plywood. Mitch had suggested painting it. I decided to Google.
A few weeks ago, after extensive Googling, I realised that headboard-making/customising/redoing is a bit of a thing. Actually, pretty much anything I wonder about turns out to be a bit of a thing. Most things are a thing. Anyway, headboards. The general consensus seemed to be that what was required was foam, wadding, glue, fabric and a staple gun. Soon after, we had a delivery of cut-to-measure (genius) foam covered in – new vocabulary – polyfibre/dacron wrap with stockinette. I had absolutely no idea what that really meant in terms of whether we’d also need wadding and whether “firm” thickness sounded okay. Anyway, I emailed and a very nice reply came from someone at the company, confirming that my order was suitable for a headboard and would just need a fabric cover. I ordered the foam, dacron wrap with stockinette and glue spray and they arrived a few days later in a big roll.
The most surprising thing about this process is that, out of character for me, I got on with it and, a few days later, with help from Chris, we stuck the foam onto the plywood. I mean, it wasn’t a challenging thing to do, I’m just one of those really annoying people who usually takes a very long time to see projects through to the end. I haven’t bought a staple gun yet as I wondered if just draping a bed cover I bought in India would suffice. It won’t.
The glue spray gave no indication how long it would take or whether it would be messy. We decided to just spray-and-stick as quickly as possible. As a result, glue made it onto the sloping wall above, my bedside table, the carpet and me. The glue is actually rather exciting as it comes out a bit like a sheet of silly string. Chris wondered about my going easy with the glue as it was apparent I was on a mission to spray all the board as quickly as possible. I felt slightly overcome in the way I suspect I might if I was let loose on a fire extinguisher and put out a fire (actually that did happen once and I did feel euphoric and heroic – I was the one who accidentally started the fire, and apparently it was the wrong kind of extinguisher, but there really is an overwhelming sense of superpowered hero derived from pulling the pin on a fire extinguisher, spraying the foam around and putting out a fire). Fairly major digression there. So, yes, my focus was not to be interrupted – spray, spray, spray, glue, glue, glue; everywhere. Chris had noticed that the glue came out kind of like silly string, with more of a wide spray than I probably expected. Once it settled on everything it shouldn’t have settled on, it looked like fine cobwebs. I carried on until the whole headboard area of the plywood looked slightly darker in colour. Then, miraculously getting it on about the right place, we stuck the foam onto the board. It immediately resembled a headboard. Not one you’d ever select but definitely a headboard. I’m mildly embarrassed by how pleased with myself I was.
I covered it with the bedspread. It looks better than having it as a stockinged piece of blue foam but it needs covering properly (ish, ie in my slapdash way) and the wooden supports need painting. For now, it appears to be fairly secure, looks a lot better than plywood and is delightfully comfortable to lean on. At some point, we’ll need to buy a staple gun and I will need to not mess up cutting a cover out of the lovely block print fabric bedspread that to my mind will make a good fabric for the headboard.
