June with a Touch of Lucy: DIYish Fabric Headboard--Lucy Style

Hey y'all! Wow, that was really Southern of me...I'm normally not like that. It must be the paint fumes. Speaking of which, I have this awesome DIY that I just completed and just HAD to share with you. I mean, I literally just finished...I still have paint on my fingers, see?

(WARNING: this is a long and ~~constantly~~ at times rambling post. If you are ~~like me~~ ~~bored easily~~ impatient, you can scroll to the bottom for the pictures) I am so excited about this project! I am S-L-O-W-L-Y and ~~cheaply~~ ~~miserly~~ frugally redoing rooms in our little duplex. I am beginning to realize that we will probably not be buying a house in the near future due to finances and my husband's schooling. We get our place for a steal as it is, so it really wouldn't be a wise decision to move especially when the houses we are looking at are same # of rooms, less baths, and within 100-200 sq.ft. and $200+/- more expensive a month. We can't paint the walls so I am trying my best to give it a home-y, not to be confused with "homie" ('sup?), feel. I've done the living room, a little of my dining room, my son's room (more to come later about that), the master bath, and decided it was time to begin on our bedroom.

I have ~~since I was 23~~ ALWAYS & FOREVER wanted a fabric headboard, but those suckers are $300 bucks or more. NOT happening. I've looked on Pinterest for DIYs and my husband even bought the plywood for us to start on it. However, we lacked two things: time and ~~sanity~~ patience. My husband and I are always on the brink of divorce whenever we do a home improvement task together due to my A-type personality and his I-can-do-it attitude. It's not pretty, folks. Plus it was going to be expensive with the foam and batting and fabric. I had given up on the idea of DIY-ing it and was just looking on Craiglist and eBay to see if I could find a cheap used one to fit our king bed. I was looking all over the state and even surrounding states. The very few I found were in the $100s and looked pretty crappy or were too small for our bed. However, one night in January, I got a text that would change my life forever. No, I don't think I'm being overly dramatic.... My friend text me a link to Craigslist. I clicked on it and there was the most beautiful fabric headboard. I looked at the details and literally squealed. It in my city AND it was a king-size AND it was $45!!!!! I mean, it couldn't be more perfect. I contacted the guy (who was Irish and looked like Patrick Dempsey, don't know why I felt that was pertinent) and arranged to pick it up the next day. It was pretty comical watching us try and get it into my little Honda, but we managed. Upon closer look, there were a few things wrong with it. It was dirty, it was stained, it has some small snags in the fabric, and the worst...it was CREAM. I hate cream. That awful color does not at all go with my color-scheme. However, because at that time I had planned on having it reupholstered, I didn't care so I bought it and drove off into the sunset. Just my and my trusty fabric headboard.

When I got home, I made some calls to see how much it would cost to reupholster it if I provided fabric. I got quotes of $275-$375. I couldn't believe it; obviously I had no idea how much something like that cost, but I was not prepared for that. I could've bought a new one exactly the way I wanted it for that price online. Forget that! My next big idea was to do it myself. Again, I turned to Pinterest for guidance and found several tutorials. However, I still lacked the same two things: time and patience. Fabric was going to be expensive too. I just didn't know what I was going to do at this point. Then one night when I ~~should've been folding laundry~~ had nothing to do, I was browsing Pinterest again. I saw a picture of a vintage chair being spray painted, not just the wood...the WHOLE thing. I clicked it and my mind was blown. FABRIC UPHOLSTERY SPRAY PAINT. Shut.the.front.door. I immediately called Hobby Lobby to see if they had it. They did. I broke every single traffic law getting to the store. I bought two cans of the Tulip brand spray paint in white to try it out. I got home and tested it and literally the paint can was empty in 30 seconds, there was THAT little in the can. That wasn't going to work either. So I went back and decided to get the non-spray paint kind that comes in regular paint squeeze bottles. I got four of those for $4.99 each plus used a 40% off coupon on each of them making them $3/bottle. (the spray paint cans were the same price so that makes my total for the six paints $18) My headboard is completely covered and completely white now! I may go back over it for another coat, but I'll see how it looks when it's all dry. I am pretty happy with the way it turned out. There was another brand that seemed to be better quality called "Simply Spray." It was more expensive at $9.99 per can but there was 2-3x as much. However, they didn't have white so I went with Tulip. There are pros and cons to this method though.

Pros Cons
Easy Feels weird and crunchy (the blog I read said it was supposed
Cheap ($18 total) to feel soft, like the original fabric)
Effective Lacks the shine of the original fabric (that could just be
Fabric pattern because I used matte and not gloss or satin)
still shows The imperfections of the fabric show more now up close
Washable after 72 hours
Doesn't transfer onto clothes once dry

Would I still like to have it reupholstered when we have ~~any~~ extra money? Yes, but this is a good long-term, temporary solution. Honestly, no one but my husband or myself is really going to be up close inspecting or feeling it anyway and it does look wonderful and FLAWLESS at a distance.

$45 for the headboard + $18 for pain = $63 total. I don't think I could have done it any cheaper! If you think I could have, shhh! Don't tell the husband!

Here are some pictures of the whole ordeal: