How to Make a Rustic Farmhouse Headboard – Under $25
Affordable and stylish. It doesn’t get much easier! Learn how to make a Rustic Farmhouse Headboard for under $25. No special tools needed.
We are deep into renovating our new to us house. It is our little fixer upper and we are in love! My girls’ bedroom was first on the list and we are turning it into a British Bookstore-esq room. We still want the room to have a rustic, farmhouse quality so we decided to make our own headboards. These Rustic Farmhouse Headboards are so easy to make and affordable too! No special tools required!
How to Make a Rustic Farmhouse Headboard
You will Need
- 1x6x12′s cut to the width of your bed + 4 – 6″
- 1 1/2 inch wood screws
- stain (your choice of color)
- sandpaper
- screw driver or drill
- Ikea Ranarp Reading Lamps (optional)
How to
The first step to these Rustic Headboards is to determine the width of your bed. I am putting this hand chart below so you can find the width that you need.
I am making 2 Twin or Single sized headboards. Since a twin bed is 36″ wide, I want my headboard to be that plus 6″. So at least 42 inches wide. Now, you can make it bigger if you desire but it is totally up to you. I actually had my boards cut at an even 4′ or 48 inches and I am happy with the size in comparison with the twin mattress and frame.
Now you are going to want to measure the height of the top of your mattress to the floor and determine how high up the wall your want your headboard to go. I am all about easy, so I literally made my twin headboards 48 inches tall and 48 inches wide so I had standard cuts.
At the home improvement store you are going to look for 1 x 6 x 12 common boards. This longer length is cheaper and the store should cut it for your for free. Since I was having mine cut 48 inches long I got (3) 48 inch boards from each 12′ board I purchased.
I ended up purchasing (4) 12′ boards and having them all cut into 48″ pieces. This gave me enough wood for 2 twin headboards.
When I got home, I laid out my boards on a flat surface to line them up and place everything where I wanted it. I then screwed it together from the back. I made sure to screw the leg to each one of the boards across and on each side.
Once they were screwed together I propped up my headboards and ran sandpaper over them to make sure they were smooth.
I then brushed on a coat of this PolyShades Stain and Polyurethane from Minwax. It makes it simple because it is all in one step.
Make sure you are staining outdoors, and allow it to dry and air out outside. The smell can be pretty strong. After the first coat dries you can go over it again if you want a richer color.
Once these were dry I brought them inside and screwed them right to the bed frames. We have these Zinus Twin Bed Frames that I love! They are sturdy and already have holes in them ready to go for a headboard.
I then attached these Ikea Ranarp Reading Lamps. These were about $20 each and the perfect style for what we were going for.
The final Farmhouse Headboard turned out even better than I imagined. The light really makes these perfect for the girls room! We loved this so much I am going to make another one for my son’s room and a bigger version for my room.
The beauty of this Rustic Farmhouse Headboard is that there is no wrong way to make it. It has a very simple design that can be played around with. You can stain or paint it any color you choose and adjust the size for your design and style.
Cost of Rustic Farmhouse Headboard
I know that the cost of this will vary depending on your store and the size of bed you make but my cost for this project looked like this…
- (4) 1x6x12 – $8 each = $32
- 1 Large can of stain = $13
- Screws = $2
Total = $47 or $23.50 per headboard
Lamps added an additional $20 to each headboard bringing my final cost to around $43.50 per headboard. Still a great price for a solid wood headboard with a light.
These headboards are only part of our British Bookstore room! These paired with our Inexpensive wall Art and the Faux Card Catalog Dresser are really bringing the room together!
