Building a headboard

I've been working on a bunch of fun little crafty projects, and I have to take pictures of all of them and post them, but this is my big accomplishment right now. Well, almost. It's not done quite yet. I built a headboard for our bedroom!

Riffing on the door theme I've seen going for a while, I designed a headboard and headed to the scratch'n'dent building supply store (motto: B-grade materials may or may not comply with building codes) to get my materials. After much deliberation and measuring, I went with a hollow-core dore (rather than a paneled one, which presents problems of symmetry when horizontal) and used these masonite panels they had to give it some flair. In case you want to build a headboard like mine, here's my materials list.

1 36" hollow-core door

1 piece of crown molding (or panel molding, like I used. The dif is that panel molding isn't as big, and fits flush against the surface, rather than fitting hollowly into a corner like crown.) Depending on bed size, you'll probably want 7+ feet to account for all your screwing up when you cut it.

1 piece of baseboard (7+ feet)

panels or whatever embellishments you want to use

1 tube painter's putty/caulk. Cheap stuff is fine

2x2s for legs, which I will explain later. Probably need 8' or so of 2x2.

Small finish nails

3" screws

Drill

Chop saw (or compound mitre saw)

You can see the panels, door and molding in that picture. I had the door cut to 65" at Home Depot. It was 80", which would be better suited to a California king than our queen mattress. After measuring out where the panels should go, I glued those in place with my construction-grade adhesive and put some paint cans on them overnight so they could dry in place. I also put a piece of trim on the hollow side of the door so there wasn't a hole there.

Next, the fun part. I measured out the molding for the top and started making cuts, which is sooo easy with a power saw. This is looking at the top of the headboard. (Here's another angle).

I drilled pilot holes and then dropped a few finish nails in, after gluing that piece of crown to the door. On top of that goes this:

which is the piece of baseboard that I made a neat 45* cut to and glued and clamped. The whole top of the headboard looks like a fireplace mantle. In the meantime, while I was waiting for my clamped pieces to dry, I caulked the edges of the masonite panels, so the whole thing would look like one piece once it was painted.

To get the best position for securing the baseboard to the top, I stood the headboard up. Here's what it looked like, coming together....

And here's how I finished the corners, so it wasn't just crown on the front:

That is my neat and tidy corner. The other one, I won't show you... Right in the center of the picture is the finished corner. The piece to the right is the baseboard, which goes on the top.

While I waited for glue and caulk to dry, I went to work on the legs. If you've been following my building exploits, you know that sometimes I have trouble getting things to be sturdy. I couldn't have that be the case with this headboard, so I thought up a great way of bracing the legs, and went with three for extra stability, rather than just two. Here's those:

I dropped two 3-inch screws from the top brace (the more horizontal piece) into the actual leg (the more vertical piece). And I glued the little corner pieces in with wood glue. They are very sturdy.

Lastly, I primed the whole thing. This was an unfortunate business, because we have a whole gallon of tinted primer left over from the living room paint job. That's right....

PINK!!

Totally reminds me of a book from when I was little, "Burt Dow, Deep Water Man." Burt and his boat, the Tidely Idley, got swallowed by a whale, and in order to get the whale to cough them up, he flung a bunch of pink and mint green and black (and maybe yellow) paint at the whale's insides.

Anyway. I glued and set the legs on it yesterday. Today I'm going to screw them in place and spray it with the first coat of black. More pix to come!!