This post has been a LONG time coming.
I've wanted a wood headboard since I saw
THIS ONE, months ago, before we even moved into our house.
She nailed it to a T.
It's perfectly cozy and warm, with so many of the things I love.
Deer Antlers. Boxwood. Barn Wood. Golds & Browns.
Its perfect!
Anyways. Back to the wood headboard.
We debated fencing wood like Liz used or pallet wood from all the pallets we had accumulated through construction. But ultimately, settled on Barn Wood.
It doesn't get much more rustic than that!
We found a
local company that sells salvaged, reclaimned barn wood a few months back.
We first visted their location in Carthage, but now they have an old lumber mill in Portland.
That's where we bought the wood below.
The wood we selected was from a barn in Kentucky that they tore down.
Once we selected the wood, we brought it home to clean it.
Jason, that sold us the wood, suggested a Borax solution.
The Borax will kill any wood boring bugs as well as anything that's on the surface of the wood.
TIP:::premake a large bucket of borax first, THEN pour it in your squirt bottle or sprayer.
The borax takes some time to dissolve and it was clogging up a LOT.
SO, I made a large batch, about 1 cup or more of borax to about a gallon of HOT water and kept stirring until it was dissolved.
We ended up putting the solution in the paint sprayer and spraying it that way. LOTS FASTER!
Spray the boards down, back and front, saturating them with the solution.
Let them dry a few days.
We laid ours out in the sunshine one full day to get them real good and dry.
After this, Lance ran each piece through the table saw and ripped them down to 3 different widths.
We made stacks of each width to keep inventory of what we had.
We taped off a section of the garage floor the size of our headboard and started laying out the pieces.
Each row contained at least 2 pieces, some even 3 depending on the cuts we made along the way.
Stagger the pieces as you go, so no seams meet.
We wanted all the original cuts on the outside, so we didn't have any 'raw' edges visable.
Once we had it just like we wanted it, I labeled each row a-z on the raw cut edge with a sharpie.
Row by row, we nailed each board to the wall.
Lance used an air compressor and a trim nailer to attach them to the wall.
We started in the middle of the wall since we had the windows as a guide.
We worked our way down first, then back to the ceiling.
Instead of going all the way to the floor, we just made an edge piece so it would appear that way once the bed was in place.
For the top piece, he ripped it down double the width of the boards below and nailed it from the top to create a finished edge.
So, there you have it.
Our Barn Wood Headboard.
It makes such an impact in the room and was totally worth the wait and the work!
Now, if I could just find night stands for under the windows, paint Lance's dresser and find a chair for in front of the window, I could show you the rest of the room. That may never get done though, so the headboard will have to work for now!
Happy DIY-ing!
