Project:: Nailhead Trim Upholstered Headboard - West Elm Inspired

Since we got married we've talked about buying a king-size bed. I love my husband but I also love my sleep! Buying a king-size mattress is one feat but buying a beautiful bed frame costs as much as the mattress or more, especially for the West Elm nailhead upholstered headboard that inspired our own DIY creation. So, why not make our own?? We saved a ton of money and the headboard project went so well we built the frame too.

Here is how we made it:

1.  Build the frame. Take into consideration the height of your bed (frame and mattress) and how high you want the headboard to show above the bed. Our headboard is 60” tall above our 35” tall bed. The padded face of the headboard is 25”. To fit our king-size bed it measures 76.5” inches wide. Here is a similar photo of the frame structure for our headboard. 

2. Attach a 1/4” piece of plywood to the frame. We chose a simple rectangle for the shape measuring 76.5” x 24”.

4. Attach upholstery foam to the face of the frame with spray adhesive. You can find a precut 76.5” x 24” x 1.5” piece of foam at major craft stores. 

5. Cover with batting. Spread out a queen size bag of batting on floor and lay headboard frame with foam side down in center of batting. Pull taught around all sides and attach to back with staple gun. You will have to trip around the legs. 

6. Lay fabric of your choice, 3.5 yards for king-size, face down. Position headboard in center. Pull taught on each size and attach to back with staple gun. You will have to trim fabric and tuck and staple around the legs. Attach the top edge last as you will need to trim and fold the top edges to make a nice seam on the edge without it bunching.

7. If you like the nailhead look, attach nailheads by depressing the foam and using a rubber mallet or a hammer with a thin cloth attached so you don’t damage the decorative nailheads to nail them in pace. I lined mine up by sight and did a few over again when I messed up. As with any nailhead furniture, they aren’t perfectly straight but you can’t tell and they look great. It’s worth the difficulty. I used 6 or 7 boxes of 20 nailheads so buy extra. You can find them at major craft stores in the upholstery section.

Music Monday:: Michael Kiwanuka

Love this new UK artist, Michael Kiwanuka, from Communion Records. He’s releasing his first EP in June. 

If you want to hear about more great music, follow my husband’s tumblr Feed from the bottom. He has great taste!

Project:: Pallet Garden

As promised, above is our new Pallet Garden, the creative inspiration of my now inspired diy Hubby. We recently built a bed - yes, a full kind-size bed - from scratch together (post and instructions to come soon!) and he seems to be as completely hooked on the resourceful, money-saving, creative outlet of the diy trend as I am. And I LOVE it! He even went to the hardware store and bought all of the flowers himself. What a lucky girl I am, huh?

His inspiration for this project came from a lovely container gardening blog, Life on the Balcony.

Here are the steps to create your own Pallet Garden:

1. First, he prepped the pallet by removing any rotted boards. Then he applied a piece of 1/4 inch thick plywood to the back bottom third portion to support the weight of the dirt that would be added. 

2. He attached garden fabric to the entire back as well as whatever edge will be the “bottom” using a staple gun. The Pallet Garden is intended to be leaned against a wall when finished.

3. Fill the pallet with garden soil suitable for the flowers or herbs you intend to plant. He chose an assortment of Trailing Ice Plants in beautiful pinks, reds, and whites, a flowering cactus variety, and purple petunias (not shown as these will be planted in the “top” row of the pallet once we stand it up.

4. Place each plant as close to the “top” side of each opening in the slats, as the dirt will settle once you stand it up. Space the plants based on the recommended planting instructions. Don’t overcrowd but plant as close as the plants will allow so the roots will grow together and help hold them in place in the pallet. Water the plants. 

5. Wait one-two weeks for the dirt to settle before standing against a wall. Once you stand the pallet up, fill the top with more soil and plant more plants in the top opening if you’d like. This is where we will plant our purple petunias. Water your plants as recommended for the varieties. Ours recommend once or twice a week.

We’ll have more photos to come soon once our Pallet Garden is in place and the petunias are planted! This will be a lovely addition right near our sitting area on our patio and a warm, colorful display to lighten our morning coffee hour each day. 

Little Man is Growing Up

Today was a beautiful sunny day and while my husband worked on a new DIY Pallet Garden project (photos coming soon!), I took some photos of our little man. He has grown so fast and is one handsome puppy. 

AroundTown:: Our Local

Me and my hubby enjoying a Boddingtons - one of the last good beers left from our Beer Braggers card - at our Local.

What’s a Local, you ask? Everybody needs a good Local. To reference my Irish heritage, it’s your local neighborhood pub. You know, the dark wood, low lights, sports on TV type hole in the wall…where everybody knows your name. Like a Cheers - I love that show! 

My husband and I both love a good beer, and similar to it’s fancier counterpart, beer tasting has become a trend. So, naturally, when we moved to a new area and checked out the local scene we passed up the trendy, neon lights of the main strip and opted for a more traditional spot. We even found one with a Beer Braggers Board: drink all of the various beers the bar offers - international delights and American spoils alike - in one year and you get your name on a gold plaque on the beer braggers wall.  We frequent it quite a bit, and yes, all of the bartenders and some of the servers know our names. We’ve even made some great friends there too!

Project:: Antique Windows

I found these windows at a local antique shop a few months ago for only $10. I’ve been working on turning one of them into a patio table for our quaint backyard sitting area. When it’s finished transforming into the beauty I imagine it to be, I’ll share a post on how it turned out and how you can do this yourself. I can’t wait to enjoy sipping my morning coffee alongside my breakfast plate!

Little Man Bottilicious

Today we adopted a little man for our home from Boston Buddies in SoCal. He was born in a wonderful foster home where he lived with his mom and brother until all three of them got adopted today at their annual adoption event! We picked him because we loved his beautiful little face due in part to his mixed breed. His Boston features peak through just enough with his big eyes and pouty bottom lip and his American Staffordshire brindle markings and square head make him one good looking pup. We named him Botti (probounced Boat-tee) after the American jazz trumpeter Chris Botti since he is one of our favorites who we have, of course, seen in concert. We think little man Botti-licious here is the best addition to our new home yet!