I’m a HUGE fan of watching HGTV. This last week in Iqaluit…when I had time to watch tv..that’s the station I watched! That’s because our cable package in Pang doesn’t include this channel.  I love watching home redecorating, remodelling, DIY shows.  It lets me DREAM of having a house of my own someday–where I can PAINT walls and try out all the cool DIY Projects I’ve wanted to do for years.

For awhile I’ve wanted to try my hand at making a padded headboard.  I never did before because my bed in the south has a really cool iron headboard. But my house here in Pang doesn’t have a headboard.  In June when I walked up to the top of Mt. Duval I talked about it with my friend about my wanting to make one, but was worried because I didn’t have access to all the ‘right’ supplies. (Living in a remote fly-in community sometimes has it’s down points, because there isn’t really a fully stocked hardware store.)   She encouraged me to try to make one with some ‘substitutions’!

So I decided try my hand at making one… Here’s the pictorial story of how I made my awesome new headboard for my bed…with a lot of help from friends and neighbours!

Step 1: Getting a piece of chipboard…

There is tons of plywood/chipboard around right now because it’s ‘sea-lift’ time and lots of people have unloaded their crates filled with goodies.  Usually their crates sit outside of their houses until they can get a chance to dispose of them.  (or they tear them apart to use the wood to build something new….like a shed or dog house etc).

My neighbour from across the road didn’t need any wood from his crate.  So I asked him if I could have a piece of it…and explained what I wanted to do with it.  Then a few days later on a Saturday I found myself over at his house…’pounding’ on a crowbar…to loosen the 1000s of huge staples that held the top on his crate.  Another neighbour joined in the fun… and soon the piece was freed from the crate…and then all the staples were removed.

Step 2: Cutting the piece of chipboard to the right size…

I had my neighbour help me cut the piece of chipboard into the right size.

Step 3:  Upholster the board…(add foam and material)…

This summer I was so crazy going in all different directions and I didn’t get a chance to go to a material store to get a heavier fabric to use.  So for my material…I picked up a single bed sized duvet cover at Ikea.  (If I had to do this again, I would tried to get to a material store to get a stiffer material that doesn’t stretch…but I this headboard for me isn’t a ‘forever’ thing…so it works.) I cut along the edge and opened it up into a “BIG” piece of fabric…and laid it out on my living room floor.

I was able to buy some memory foam from friends that moved from Iqaluit.  This foam is squishy…but worked alright. I cut a piece to the right  size and put it on top of the material.  (I didn’t have any spray glue…(only glue was kids white craft glue) so I didn’t spray glue the foam onto the piece of wood….this would help HOLD the foam in place. )

Then I put the piece of chipboard on top of the foam.

Then I started to staple the fabric…pulling it as tight as I could.  The 2nd time I did this…I actually got on top of the board to squish the foam to pull the material tight as I can.  (If I had to do it again, I would pick a material that doesn’t stretch as easy!)

For the corners, I folded them into a triangle… to make them as neat as possible.  And kept going around pulling the fabric and stapling!

Step 4: Hanging it on the wall…

I finished the first 3 steps by the end of August before I went to France. But in order to hang this on the wall, I needed to get some flush mount wall hanging clips. I was going to look for hanging clips when I was in Ottawa, but then discovered that everything was closed because it was Labour Day Monday!

That’s when online shopping comes into play- ‘the google’ is a great friend.  When I got back to Pang in the middle of September…I found Wall Huggers, company online in Ontario that sold the clips.  After a quick phone call, they popped them into the mail to me… then I had to wait…but when I got back from Iqaluit they had arrived in the mail! The package they sent was awesome…It was an awesome and easy package to use…the thing I loved about it was the package not only had the flesh mounts..but all the screws and wall plugs I would need too!

Today I asked Mary to help me hang the headboard on the wall.  Mary was awesome…she helped do all the measuring…and figuring out where to put the clips!  As you can see..I added another piece of plywood..because the chipboard was too thin & the screws would go through onto the other side!  I was able to hand-screw the screws in…put the plugs on the wall… ( I really need to get a drill!)

The final check… is it level? (this was hard because both sets of wood were not 100% straight…but it was good enough for me!) But Mary worked magic… It was LEVEL after the 1st try!

Here’s some BEFORE and AFTER shots…

Side Note: You can see my awesome round mirror I bought in Paris and flew home with. (…there was a street market/sale of antiques and other random items near my hotel in Paris…it happens about twice a year.  It ended up happening on the last weekend I was there.  I love going to these things…I walked past the mirror 3 times, but knew I would regret not getting it so I bought it!)

So there you have it…Project Headboard is complete!

(thanks to all my friends & neighbours that helped out…I couldn’t have done it without you!)