Reupholstered Headboard

I made our headboard seven years ago (blog here).

If I was to do it over from scratch, I'd do some things differently. Be more of a perfectionist about cutting the foam, for one. I also wanted more buttons. The french cleat I thought at Home Depot has held up beautifully. If anyone is interested it's this one.

I'm tired of this headboard. I am tired of brown. Brown is out. Gray is in. I've been meaning to reupholster the headboard for months now.

The before (and all of my glorious mess because hey, we friggin live here ok).

I bought a bunch of grey fabric thinking it would be perfect. When I got it home, my lighting made it look purple. I'm so glad I have two and a half yards of purplish grey fabric I'm never going to use.

So I bought (much smaller) samples of other fabrics that I also did not love.

This seriously took months and multiple trips to different stores. Until I finally found one that I thought would work. So I took my headboard apart.

Realized I couldn't re-use the original buttons. Those suckers do not come apart. So I had to buy all new buttons. And of course, cover them.

Drilled more holes for the buttons.

And started putting it back together.

I looked at a few tutorials on Pinterest and there was one thing that saved my life and let me increase the number of buttons like I wanted. It was the double headed needle. Previously I would thread a normal needle, put it all the way through to the front, catch the button, and then poke it through to the back. It was surprisingly difficult to get it back through all the foam and find the hole. 

The double headed needed is super long. I threaded it, and poked the top part through but didn't pull the needle all the way through.

Then I took the thread off, caught the button, and re-threaded it. Then I just pulled the needle out. Super easy.

I had J push the button down on the front and tied the back to a button.

J thought it was weird that I didn't staple it first, like we did with the first one, but this is how the tutorials said to do it.

I don't love it. It's just ok. I think I should have used a darker fabric. And I'm kind of irritated. Do I reupholster it a-friggin-gain? This is why I have decorating issues.

I do love the buttons though. J said maybe if we buy new bedding it'll look better. We'll see.