It’s been a few months since we started our bedroom update, and I’ve gotten a little bit stuck. One of the things that we changed was upgrading from a queen bed to a king. We got a new mattress and a simple platform bed. But after using the bed for a while, I realized that while I like the minimalist no-headboard look, I miss having a headboard to lean up against. And to keep my pillows from falling into the gap between the mattress and the wall.

But since we just bought a new bed frame, it would be wasteful to buy a new one. So I decided to make a wall-mounted upholstered headboard. Otherwise known as a floating headboard.

After doing a bunch of research on how to make my own floating headboard, I found out that you only need a pretty short list of supplies to make an upholstered headboard:

• Fabric
• Foam
• Batting
• Plywood
• Staples

Should be simple, right? Well, it would be, if finding fabric was easier. Since I wanted a “no-headboard” look, but with the comfort of an upholstered headboard, I was looking for a light gray or off-white, ivory velvet to blend in with the wall and bedding. My local fabric stores didn’t have options that I was happy with, and I’m too picky to trust that I’d be satisfied with fabric I couldn’t see in person. I ordered a bunch of free swatches from Wayfair, which were supposed to be here already, but they’re “investigating a delay.”

Did you know that West Elm sells fabric by the yard? I had no idea, and maybe it’ll come in handy someday, but right now fabrics have “extended delivery” times of 6+ weeks. So even if I could see the swatches in a store, it would take 6+ weeks to get the fabric. Who has time for that? Not me.

So I turned to another option: Curtains. It turns out that curtain panels are a relatively inexpensive way to buy a couple of yards of upholstery-weight fabric. And they’re just sitting around in stores, waiting for me to touch and buy them with no wait time whatsoever!

Thankfully Target delivered on the curtain fabric. This ivory curtain fabric looks really multi-tonal on my computer screen, but in real life, it’s not. It just looks like ivory velvet. Which is good because that’s what I want. (Perfect example of why I can’t buy fabric online.) It’s 84×50 inches, which works out to about $16.31 per yard, and it should be juuuuust long enough for my headboard. I picked apart the hems at the top and bottom to optimize the usable length.

If you’re waiting for the triumphant unveiling of my new minimalist upholstered headboard at the end of this blog post, I’m sorry to disappoint you. I waited until after I found fabric to order my upholstery foam. It’s still in transit, so we’ll both have to wait a bit longer.

While we’re waiting, here are some of my inspiration images for the headboard. You can ignore the other parts of the beds.

This one is from Jenni Kayne.

And this one is from Urban Outfitters.

This one has me thinking that I should round the corners a bit on my headboard. What do you think?

I’m hoping that this headboard will be as easy as it looks to make, but you never know. Especially since my three-year-old will be off from school for a month starting Friday, this project may take me a little longer than I think to finish. Fingers crossed that my foam gets to me soon, and that it all goes as planned!