How to Make a Channel Tufted Headboard

How To Create A Channel Tufted Headboard

Get a Luxe Look For Less

Sometimes I get an idea in my head for a piece of furniture and I can't find it anywhere.  Or I find a picture of something similar, yet it's about 487 million dollars, and it turns out I only have 387 million dollars, so alas, I can't afford it.  

Life is hard.  Hashtag first world problems. 

That is the story of this headboard.  It was almost four years ago, and I couldn't find a green velvet headboard ANYWHERE.

 It's one of the most commented on item when I post on instagram so I wanted to share how I made it. It's really easy.  If you read all the way down, you can see how I made it with NO SAWS or cutting items (because I don't do saws, because I like all my fingers). 

(You can now find a green velvet headboard lots of places, but if you want a different more unique color- you’re gonna have to make it yourself)

Supplies Things You Need: 

• Boards: Decide what width you want the channels to be, and how high of a headboard.  (If you want to be most cost conscious, do a headboard height that can be cut out of 8 or 12 feed boards evenly (so 4ft/6ft high), as opposed to picking a 5ft tall headboard and having a bunch of 3 ft left over scraps).  

• batting (do not try to do it without the batting)

• 2" foam

• staple gun and LOTS of staples

• french cleat 

• 1x2" boards for back

• drill 

• screws

• Fabric 

How To Steps

1.  Figure out how many boards you need.  I used 1x6's (which are really more like 1x5s) and needed 12 of them, and for our bedroom I needed them to 40” tall.  I went to Home Depot and had them cut the boards for me there.  The signs there say they charge for more than a few cuts, but I've never had an issue with being charged (and even if you are, it's like $0.25 a cut, which is a heck of a lot cheaper than a saw...also less chance of losing fingers)  I also got 1 x 2" cut long enough to go the width of the headboard

2. Next step- Measure out each piece of foam on a board and cut the foam into pieces.  You generally want to make sure the piece of foam is the same size as the board or slightly smaller, or you'll have some overhanging foam bulge (the technical term for it) and it could be more difficult to connect all channels together.  

3. Batting: you're going to need a piece of batting large enough to wrap each piece of foam and board.  Think about wrapping a present, Staple the crap out of the batting. 

4. Fabric:  Once you've got each board wrapped with batting, cut fabric to size to cover each individual board (once again you want to wrap it like a present).  Flip the foam board covered with batting upside down on the fabric (so you can see the staples you just put in) and proceed to wrap board like a present.  Take care when folding the corners at the top, so they're flat and uniform on all the boards, because you'll be able to see them.  Staple away. 

5.  Once you've got all the boards foamed, wrapped in batting and covered in fabric, line them up in the order you want them to be.  Then flip them fabric side down/staple side up on the floor.

6.  You might need help with this step- or you could use some heavy things to hold the boards together. 

You want to take the 1x2's and place them on 2 sections of the headboard- their purpose is to hold all the boards together.  you want the highest one to be about 1/3 of the way down the headboard, and the second about 2/3 of the way down so they're placed evenly. (In the picture above, the level is to imitate how you would attach a 1x2 to the fabric wrapped pieces of wood).

Screw some long enough screws into the wood, so you can connect the two boards (you want the screws long enough to go into the second board and hold the two boards together, but not too long that it's going to poke out the foam in the front...Not a super comfy bed if a screw is hitting you in the head).  

7.  Attach the french cleat onto the back of top 1x2".   Attach other french cleat to wall (do some measuring first to make sure it's in the right spot, and make sure you're using a few studs.  (use a big french cleat with a high weight limit)

8.  Hang headboard on wall.  

9.  Go take a nap in your nice new bed.  

(You’ll notice some of these pictures are from the channel tufted banquette we made recently- you can go to that post to see more info. Both the headboard and banquette were made with same method, but I lost the pictures from when I made the headboard)

Let me know if you have any questions!

Best White Paint Color BM OC 130 Cloud White in Real Homes

Best White Paint Color BM OC 130 Cloud White in Real Homes

Before someone crucifies me….Is this the ultimate, bestest, going to work with every single-house-white-paint color?

No. That white doesn’t exist.

But it is a white paint color that I’ve used in many different projects…from mid-century modern to old vintage houses, this white is a great one.

Cloud white is a WARM white. That means it has some yellow undertones with a smidge of black. Don’t be scared off by the word ‘yellow’ in the description of it.

That being said, if you’ve got some stark white furniture or stark white tile, Cloud white is NOT going to look great next to it.

Benjmamin Moore’s Cloud White is great because it’s right there in the middle of the stark pure white and some warmer whites.

Which is why it can straddle design asethetics so well.

The first four of these spaces are in a mid century modern home we did a few years ago.

These next pics are from a house built in the early 1900’s- the decor has some modern pieces, but is a much different house than the previous one.

You will notice that the paint color does not look the same between the two houses.

The pictures were taking on different days, with different lighting, and different photographers. Not to mention the window and natural lighting situation is completely different between the two.

This is a great example how the same paint color can look different in different spaces- and why you should ALWAYS get samples first.

Despite Cloud White looking different in each space, it still looks great and does so well in both houses.

While I do love other whites as well (Simply White, Decorators White if you were curious), Cloud White will always be one of my favs.

Learn How To Create A Kitchen You Love by Painting Your Cabinets

Learn How To Create A Kitchen You Love by Painting Your Cabinets

(No paint sprayer needed)

So you hate your kitchen cabinets and don’t want to spend the money for new ones. 

I get it. 

Painting is a great way to change the whole look of a kitchen without spending a ton of money.  It takes some time and effort, but you can do it well…even WITHOUT a paint sprayer. 

I painted the lower cabinets in the kitchen above for the fall 2020 One Room Challenge and they turned out really well. (Scroll to bottom to see what they looked like before, and some more after pics).

I’ve sprayed kitchen cabinets before & I’ve rolled them.  They both have pros & cons, but this time around I didn’t want to deal with all the spray prep, and I also didn’t have a warm place to do the painting if we were to spray them. 

The thing that makes it possible to roll these is the most amazing paint product to ever hit the market….Benjamin Moore’s Advance line.

No, they’re not paying me (unfortunately). This paint is a latex paint, but levels like an oil. Which means it takes 16 hours to dry (boo!), but gives you the best finish you could ask for as a non-professional (yay!).

Supplies You Need To Paint Your Cabinets

• ziplock bags (for door hardware

• Screwdriver

• Orbital Sander

• 100 Grit, 200-300 grit sandpaper

• Fine grit sanding block

• 4” roller with short nap

• 1-2” Angled paint brush

• Benjamin Moore Advance Primer

• Benjamin Moore Advance Paint (Matte/Satin/Semigloss/High Gloss options)

  • I have used all of these sheens for painting cabinets or furniture, and the only one I don’t like is the satin. For some reason I never like the way it comes out.

Step One: You gotta take the cabinet doors off.

No. Don’t try to do this with the doors on. It’s gonna look bad. Real Bad. Pro tip is put hardware from each door into a ziplock bag and label it with door number. Write the door number in the notch where hardware goes, so you know it won’t be painted over (if you’re spraying cabinets, cover the number with a small piece of painters tape so you know what doors go where)

Step Two: Sand, Sand Sand

This step is the hardest and the worst.  It takes the most time, and if you don’t put the time and effort in, your whole project is gonna look real crappy real soon. 

You have to sand those suckers down and get rid of all the gloss on the cabinets so the paint will stick.  And when I say sand, you need to sand em’ good.  You also have to remember that you want the finish to stay smooth, so don’t sand with 60 grit, or it’s going to gouge out the fronts.  You should start sanding with 100 grit to get all of the initial finish off, and then go to 180-200grit to smooth everything up. 

Use a sanding sponge in the corners and the places that are hard to reach with your sander.  

Plan for the sanding to take you a few hours at the VERY LEAST, if not longer.  Do not skimp on this step.

Step Three: Clean Cabinets

I first vacuum the fronts with my dyson, and then I wipe them down with a soft, damp cloth, and then I vacuum them AGAIN.  Then I run my hands all over them to make sure that A) they’re consistently smooth and B) there is not any dust on them.  (you can also use tack cloth for this, but I prefer a damp rag)

Step Four: Prime Kitchen Cabinets

If you’re fancy, you will drill holes in the bottom of your cabinets door fronts so you can have the sticking up and paint both front and back and same time.  I’m not fancy. 

I used bins in my basement to set the fronts on. 

Remember to start painting the BACK of the cabinet FIRST.  You do this because then you will need to flip them over, and there is always a chance paint is dinged slightly from laying on a new paint job (which is why people suspend them in the air). 

Prime both sides and then let them dry.  We use Benjamin Moore Advanced line to paint, and use the Ben Moore Advanced primer.  If this is the only project you’re doing, then tint the primer to match your final color.  We bought a gallon of the primer in white, because we have a lot of projects we are using it for. 

Step Five: More Sanding

Oh yay!  Use a really smooth grit (200-300grit) to sand the primer. 

Try to get a really really smooth finish, because this will dictate how smooth your final finish is. 

Step Six: Painting Cabinets For Real

Finally the fun part! Remember to start with the back of the cabinets (also will give you some time to practice how to get a smooth finish with the roller). 

I used a 4” roller with a really smooth roller nap that is meant for cabinets and smooth surfaces (ask your local paint store to recommend the best kind). 

The trick to this paint is to try to get the most even surface (ie, don’t do one section of cabinet with a ton of paint, and the other just using what ever is left on the roller).  The paint will do an amazing job of leveling (smooth out), but try to put the same amount of paint with no huge blobs. 

Do not try to suck as much paint out of that roller as you can- on a wall with eggshell, you can roll and roll and use all the paint prior to getting more paint.  If you do that, you will not have a great finish. 

For these cabinets, I used a combination of a 4” roller and a small angled brush to get into the corners and crevices. 

You will need 2-3 coats of your final color. 

Step Seven: More Sanding

If you want to do an extra nice job, you will sand the cabinets between each coat of paint.  I was sort of lazy, so I only sanded them after the primer, and then prior to the 3rd and final coat of paint.  (don’t be lazy like me). 

Step Eight: WAIT FOR 2-3 Weeks

Now the trick is to let the door fronts sit for 2 weeks AT LEAST.  The Benjamin moore paint takes up to 21 days to cure completely, so if you start using them right away, the paint with ding…and chip.  If you wait until it completely hardens, you are much more likely to have a durable finish. 

I had to put the fronts on earlier than I wanted so I could get pictures to finish the One Room Challenge, and they got dinged up pretty bad in that first week.  After another week or so, they’ve been pretty hardy and are still looking good a few months later. 

Let me know if you have any questions and/or how your project goes!

What the kitchen looked like before:

And After:

DIY Channel Tuft Banquette Bench How-To

DIY Channel Tuft Banquette Bench How-To

I know a lot of people wanted to know how we upholstered our banquette bench from our Fall 2020 One Room challenge project, so this post is for you my friends!

First…look at some pretty pictures. Isn’t it lovely!??

Not only is it lovely, it is COMFORTABLE! I love sitting there, and now it’s my favorite place to sit on the computer and work before the savages wake up.

Please note, that we had the bench and drawers made by our friends at Re.Dwell because we didn’t have time to deal with that. You could do something similar by using an Ikea Besta series with drawers for the bench and putting some wood on top and for the back, and then pick up my directions here.

What you need

• a bench

• 1/4” plywood cut to size

• staple gun (and huge amount of staples)

• batting found at joanns or hobby lobby

• High Density Foam (Joanns or Hobby Lobby)

  • 3” Foam for bench

  • 1” foam for back

• Whatever fabric you’re using

• Industrial Velcro

There are a lot of ways you could do this. You could just upholster some foam like a pillow, and throw it up on the bench. I wanted a custom upholstered look, like at a fancy restaurant, so I figured out how to do that (it wasn’t hard).

Since the bench was sturdy, the wood I used as backing for the upholstery, didn’t have to be. We didn’t want a lot of extra bulk, so we went with 1/4” plywood (the cheap stuff). We (the husband), cut the plywood into the size of the bench- making it slighttttlllly smaller than actual bench to account for fabric and batting.

Steps to DIY upholstered Banquette Bench

• cut the foam to match the size of your plywood

• wrap batting around foam and wood, pull tight and staple (make sure you have extra batting on the edge that will be the front edge of bench)

• now take the fabric you’re using to upholster (we used a faux leather to make clean up easy) and upholster the sides first and then the back of bench, leaving the front edge UN-STAPLED

• Now you can take the upholstered piece of plywood to your bench. I used heavy duty velcro to attach the plywood to the bench. I wanted to be able to change it out if I needed to without too much trouble.

• Do not fold the batting underneath the plywood- you want the batting to come out towards the front of the bench so you can fold it over the ledge of the bench like in picture (this is what will give you the ability to make it look more built in)

• Staple the batting along the whole length of under the ledge of the bench.

• Then I pulled the black fabric tight and wrapped it over the batting and stapled it underneath the edge of the bench. (the corners took a few trys to fold and get right because of the extra fabric, but it’s not hard to get the staples out and do it over)

Here we are ready to upholster the back of the bench! (this can still be done if you don’t have a back to your bench- you just need to use 1” thick boards instead of the 1/4” plywood and attach to wall with a french cleat.)

How to DIY Upholster a Channel Tufted Banquette

• The steps for these are very similar to the bench, except more time consuming because there are so many more pieces involved

• You need 1” foam, batting, and 1/4” plywood

• First wrap the batting around foam and plywood pulling tight- this give you the rounded edges

• Then wrap fabric around and staple away

• If you are using patterned fabric, number the backs of your pieces of wood so you can keep the pattern repeat in order.

For this bench, we used 4” wide boards that were 26” high (would’ve gone higher if the window trim wasn’t there). If you want to make less work for yourself, you can go with 5” or 6” wide boards.

First I organized the boards onto the back of bench. Because the bench was upholstered almost all the way to the back, I was able to squish them a little bit in between black upholstered foam and the back of the bench.

I put pieces of velcro on each board and stuck it in place.

With the velcro, I can easily remove one board and reupholster if it gets ruined, and I can also easily pull out the board if I want to use that outlet behind.

Important- If you do not have an angled bench back board to velcro individual boards to, you need to use 1” thick boards to upholster individually-

Then you will line them all up together like in the above picture, and use 2 thin boards (imagine level is a board) and screw into each piece of upholstered board so that they are all stuck together. Then you can attach a french cleat to back of upholstered boards and hang on wall.

And there you have it- your very own, super comfy, super pretty channel tufted, upholstered bench.

(If you look close, you can see some batting sticking out under the bench edge…it’s on the to-do list someday to glue a small piece of fabric up there to cover it up….but if I were a betting woman, that probably never happens.

Let me know if you have any questions!

Gucci Grandma Kitchen: One Room Challenge Reveal

Gucci Grandma Kitchen: One Room Challenge Reveal

We. Are. Done.

Done. Done. Done with our second One Room Challenge.

(well…we still have to actually put all of our junk that is currently in bins all over our living room into the mudroom cabinets…but that seems like a good job for a Saturday afternoon with a cocktail in hand).

First off- we want to thank Linda from Calling It Home and Better Homes and Gardens for hosting the One Room Challenge. Without them, there is NO WAY we would’ve had neither the motivation nor the drive to finish this in 7 weeks.

A big shout out and thank you to Belwith-Keeler for sponsoring this project and providing cabinet hardware for the kitchen and mudroom.

And let’s not forget to thank our talented photographer Dionel, from The Mittentog…without whom we would be left with our 3 year old to take the pictures.

Kitchen & Mudroom you ask? I thought this was a ONE room challenge? My brain works in funny ways…I hear One Room Challenge and my brain says, “Why don’t you decide to do 3 rooms?! That would be a good way to conserve energy and strengthen your marriage!”

Apparently math and logical thinking aren’t my strong suits.

We started with a kitchen that wasn’t terrible…it had new cabinets and countertops from the previous owners, so I did not want to rip everything out.

I wanted to add just a little bit of personality to make me happier about being a short order cook for three of the world’s most demanding restaurant patrons.

The bathroom was right next to the kitchen, and had pretty ugly paper-like linoleum floor, and no other personality.

The mudroom was nice if you ignored the barnwood….and happened to be a family of one and needed zero storage space.

Disclaimer: Just like I don’t know the meaning of the number one, I also don’t know the meaning of ‘a little personality’.

So without further ado…Behold, (per my husband): The Gaudy Grandma Kitchen

I prefer “Eclectic, Modern-Vintage Kitchen”, but what are you gonna do? (He did upgrade me to Gucci Grandma Kitchen by the end of it).

Waiting for my Gucci sponsorship to come through…

As you can see, we removed the window by the bathroom door and had it drywalled, and installed some open shelving. This kitchen was not only boring, but also had zero storage.

We tiled the backsplash, counter to ceiling with black zellige type tile from Tile Bar.

Then, to create MORE storage….and a cozy place to hang out, we had our friends at Re.dwell build us a banquette bench with drawers underneath. That’s six feet of premium kitchen storage folks.

It would be a tight fit, but I could fit at least two of my kids under there if need be.

I had a banquette plan for this space when we bought the house, so I bought the marble table from World Market & the lucite chairs from CB2. The light fixture is the FL/Y pendant from Kartell and helps make the sapce!

I took my upholstery skills to a whole new level and upholstered the bench giving it a built in upholstered look with a channel tufted back in some crazy, modern, black and white fabric from Spoonflower.

The yellow floral wallpaper from Drop It Modern was something I loved (yellow being my favorite color), but was a bit nervous about. It may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I loveeeee it.

Originally, I was planning on painting lower cabinets a dark green, but made a decision midway through the process and decided to go with a yellow tone from the wallpaper. Yellow being my favorite color and all.

The bathroom design was based on leftover tile we already had from our previous projects. We did a 2” matte black hex tile on the floor and 4” square white subway on the walls. And then because I couldn’t contain myself, black and white malachite wallpaper on the walls and ceiling from Cole & Sons.

When the door is open, the black and white wallpaper makes a play with the black and white upholstered bench back in the kitchen. It’s not the same matchy-matchy, but it’s not all that different.

For the mudroom, we had the barnwood walls removed, and installed drywall, took out one of the windows, so we could install floor to ceiling cabinets.

I can definitely fit all 3 of my children in these cabinets…

In the mudroom we did Ikea cabinets with Semihandmade fronts. Black pulls are from Belwith-Keeler. It isn’t hard to put together Ikea cabinets, but it did come with a little bit of PTSD from our last Ikea project.

We still have the countertop to install and some shelving in the mudroom, but it’s pretty much done.

Thank you so much to all of you for your cheerleading while we worked to finish this project. Seeing your excitement made me work harder to get all these projects finished on time.

It was SO much work and I’m really tired (and my husband is tired of all the house projects), but I’m super thankful for the push to get it done.

I don’t think he reads my blog, but if he does…I’m finding out if he reads to the end of my blog….a big, huge, tremendous, thank you to my husband for being a good sport and tiling everything, installing pulls, trim, and almost anything else he did throughout.

He complained a lot, and he’s leaving tomorrow on a fun trip for a week “in payment” for his work, but I wouldn’t have been able to do it without him.

As always….don’t forget to check out all of the other guest designers here and the amazing featured designers of this season.

If you want to see the whole process click on the below links for week to week progress.

Week One I Week Two I Week Three I Week Four I Week Five

Week 5 One Room Challenge: Modern Vintage Kitchen in Grand Rapids, MI

Week 5 One Room Challenge: Modern Vintage Kitchen in Grand Rapids, MI

Here I am posting a few days late. We had a client presentation for a big project this week (it’s going to be amazing, and I can’t wait to show it to you…in like 8 months), and that means that our own projects go on the back burner.

see the pretty new windows!??

I can only imagine how long this project would take us if we didn’t have the ORC to give us a kick in the butt.

SO! Week 5! Big things happened this week!.

We had new windows installed! We actually ended up getting new windows throughout the whole house which is exciting since the original ones were literally a hundred years old. Winter will be more enjoyable now.

We also had them remove the window in the kitchen and frame it in. Same for the window in the mudroom. The mudroom won’t be all finished by next thursday as they can’t install the cabinets until thursday….but considering that’s my third room in this seasons one room challenge, I don’t feel too bad about finishing that room late.

My hot tile guy finished up tiling over that wall where the window used to be. He gets to grout this weekend and the tile will be completely finished!

I’ve started working on upholstering for the banquette bench. I’m totally making it up as I go along. No idea how to really upholster for a built in upholstered look, and so I’m winging it with my trusty stapler.

I haven’t decided if I should paint the two doors in the kitchen black or not. I prefer dark doors to white, but 1) I’m not convinced I’ll love it in this room 2) I’m running out of time.

Since I’m running out of time, I thought maybe I would add one more things on my list and paint the mudroom ceiling the color of the kitchen cabinets. It remains to be seen if that actually happens.

I got lulled into thinking “we are almost done, we’ve totally got this!”. And then we made a to-do list last night and I was reminded we still have so much to do in order to have a finished room.

• Grout tile

• Hang shelves on tiled wall (drilling into tile can be a pain in the butt)

• Install new kitchen faucet

• Finish upholstering banquette bench and back (no idea how long this will take)

• paint trim to finish trimming bathroom

• smooth wall to prepare for wallpaper…(we ripped off a chair rail)

• Hang cabinet doors

• Install all cabinet hardware

• Put together Ikea cabinets for mudroom

• Potentially paint mudroom

• maybe paint kitchen doors.

Who wants to come over and do some projets?? Anyone? Bueller??

Don’t forget to check out the progress from the other guest participants in this seasons one room challenge and also some of the super fun stuff that the featured designers are doing!