A headboard can make a huge statement in a bedroom whether it’s a master, guest, or child’s. Although, sometimes it’s hard to find that perfect headboard to go with your king or queen bed, which is why we came up with this list for you. It includes 51 unique designs that you can construct in your free time if you really want to have something truly spectacular behind your bed. There’s nothing better than complimenting your brand new mattress with a hand crafted headboard from our list!
#1. Classy Faux Tiles
This headboard has a very classy look to it and there are tons of options available if you aren’t a fan of the white. This design is also very simple to do yourself. All you need are some foam faux tiles, scotch mounting tape, and whatever color paint you want. This is a super quick project and an awesome way to create a unique headboard of any color.
#2. Antique Window Headboard
The next time you see somebody throwing out a couple of matching windows, don’t hesitate to grab them if you’re looking for an easy project for your home. Windows make great headboards for your bedroom. You can use a tape measure, level, and screws to make sure the windows are level and hung where you want them, ensuring they are secured to the wall so not to fall on your head. It’s a super vintage look!
#3. Upholstered Beauty
This is a very lengthy project and requires some sewing skills, which I don’t have, so this is project won’t be one for my future. But if it’s for you, you’re going to need a few materials which includes whatever fabric you want. You can make this headboard as fancy or as modern as you please. It is rather time consuming, but in the end, you’ll have an absolutely beautiful upholstered headboard made from plywood, fabric, and a few other odds and ends.
#4. Book-Board
If you love books or have a passion for reading, this headboard is a wonderful idea and very unique. You’ll need a lot of books, so I suggest looking at thrift stores or garage sales for around .50 to $1.00 a piece. You’ll need to make sure these hardcover books are the same size or as close as you can get so the layout is easier. Measure them up, attach the books to the plywood with some nails and enjoy your new headboard! This gives the illusion that the books are just floating there and not attached to anything. Pretty cool, huh?
#5. DIY Canopy
I’ve seen headboards and I’ve seen canopies, but I’ve never seen both at the same time. This unique project combines the two, making a beautiful backdrop for your bed. All you need are some adjustable curtain rods, ceiling mounted curtain brackets, anchors and screws, and the fabric pattern of your choosing. To create the canopy look, it takes a little bit of sewing, so I guess it’s another project I won’t be doing, but maybe you’ll have better luck!
#6. Wrought Iron Pieces
You can buy wrought iron headboards, but did you know that you can use your own wrought iron findings to make one yourself for a cheaper price? You can pick up wrought iron fencing, 2×4’s, and some nails to make your own creation. I don’t suggest leaving the rust on it if there’s any, but maybe clean it up and spray it with some protectant. You can also spray paint whatever color you want to match the decor of your room.
7. Manila Rope Headboard
Got an old door lying around that just isn’t serving any purpose in your house anymore? I love what these guys did with theirs and the manila rope. All they used was some hot glue and this rope to make a beautiful country style headboard. They cut their pieces to fit around the door and glued the pieces to the back of it and secured some stubborn pieces with Gorilla Glue and duct tape. After they were done, they secured it to the wall and voila!
#8. Trash To Treasure
Do you have an old sign laying around that’s just collecting dust? Why not turn it into a one of a kind headboard for your bedroom. This is one prime example of what you could do with an old sign. They took an old convenience store sign and just mounted it behind their bed to make a very retro and one of a kind backing for their bed. This is definitely something that I could see myself doing.
#9. Funky Ropes
This design is perfect for a child’s bedroom who wants to show their own creativity and individuality. You need some timber, rope, a drill, and some other odds and ends for this project. Essentially, you drill holes into these timber pieces and randomly thread different colored ropes through the holes to make a random pattern. It’s pretty funky and you can use whatever colors you want to express your creative side.
#10. Flowers Galore
If you love flowers, you’re going to love this idea for a headboard. It involves using West Elm paper flowers to create a paper garden above your head. In order to create this look, however, you need the West Elm Morroco headboard to attach the flowers to with floral wire and thin white artist’s tape. Once done, it creates a beautiful piece that you can change to your liking whenever you please.
#11. Flashy Aluminum Flashing
If you like flashy, you’ll love this. In order to create this look, you’re going to need a piece of MDF board, aluminum flashing, and a staple gun. Then you cut the flashing into strips and weave them over and under like a basket weave look. This creates the different color square look or the look of something that cost a pretty penny to buy, but really, it only cost a few dollars! The end result is absolutely stunning.
#12. Pegboard
I’ve seen this stuff used as holding tools and other merchandise in retail stores, but I never thought of it as a headboard. For this creation, all you need are some drywall screws, pegboard, clear spacers, pegboard hangers, and some general mounting tools. You can buy as many pieces of pegboard as you need to create a headboard as big or as small as you want. Once you’re done, you’ll have tons of spots to hang whatever you want on display.
#13. Fireplace Mantle Headboard
This is quite the creative idea if you ask me. Do you have a fireplace in your bedroom that you don’t or can’t use? Make it into a headboard! You can do this by filling in the open space of the fireplace with upholstery foam and a board insert. You then take some painters canvas and some upholstery nails and create a tufted upholstered headboard. Pretty neat, huh?
You may want to read: Best Upholstered Headboards
#14. Colorful Fabric
It’s hard to think that for just under $50, you can create a vintage looking headboard from batting, flower fabric, and plywood. You can make whatever design you want, but this one fits perfectly with the size of the bed. Just draw your outline, cut it with a skill saw, staple the fabric and batting to the plywood and voila! You have yourself a funky, colorful headboard.
#15. Salvaged Wood Beauty
This headboard is perfect for rooms that have limited room in their homes or apartments. This beautiful piece of work is composed of repurposed wood and some stain. You can make any design you want out of these pieces and stain them any color you please. These pieces definitely seem to bring some individuality to the bedroom.
#16. Vintage Sheet Headboard
If you’re a fan of vintage looking pieces, you’ll love this one. It’s made from 14” square wall art pieces and a vintage style sheet. The sheet wasn’t stapled to the wall pieces so that it could be repurposed for something else later on. The best part about this design is that you can use any vintage style sheet that fits the decor of your bedroom. The key to this design is the foam squares that hold the sheet in place against the front of each frame. Pretty nifty, eh?
#17. The Rustic Ladder
I absolutely love the idea of the ladder as a headboard. It offers plenty of space to put up knick knacks, pictures, and anything else you want to put on display in your bedroom. This particular design features a small rustic ladder, but depending on how creative you want to get, you can use some that are larger or more of a new style. Not to mention, it’s super easy to hang and maintain!
#18. Chalkboard Style
If you have a lot of spare time on your hands, you can create a 100% unique piece of art with some chalkboard paint and chalk. This specific room features all of the walls covered in chalkboard paint, but the real piece of art is that chalkboard with the headboard drawn on it. You can use this to create any style headboard you want, simply by drawing it. If you don’t like how it looks, start over by erasing it.
#19. Woven Wood
If you really want to be creative and make something really awesome, try this woven wood headboard design. It involves some plywood, wood stain, clear finish, and a couple other odds and ends. This is going to take a little bit of wood chopping, but the end result is stunning and unique.
#20. Pallets Galore
The pallet headboard is probably one of the easiest ones on the list. All it involves is one old pallet and some paint. You can paint the pallet whatever color you want to match the decor of your room and hang it up on the wall. This creates a rustic country look in the bedroom and you could probably score a pallet for free!
DIY Wooden Headboard Ideas
#21. Repurposed Door
Repurposing materials is a great way to get rid of some of the old junk that may be laying around your house. One of the items that you could easily repurpose is a door. This particular headboard uses a door with a panel design that’s a few inches taller than your bed is wide. You can then paint the door and the panels any color you desire to create a unique headboard.
#22. Picket Fence Headboard
If you have an old piece of cedar picket fence laying around, don’t throw it away or burn it! You can use it to make yourself a beautiful, unique headboard. All you need to do is cut the pattern, sand it down, and stain it if you desire. The headboard is going to be rather tall, so make sure you have enough room for it between your bed and ceiling. Cedar is beautiful and it’ll add a wonderful touch to the bedroom.
#23. Uneven Pallets
Pallets are very popular for repurposing because you can find them virtually everywhere and they are easy to take apart and manipulate. This particular headboard involves multiple pieces of pallets stacked neck to each other unevenly. It creates a very rustic look and kind of reminds me of the fencing that you would see on a beach. You can stain them whatever color you would like or leave them the color they are.
#24. Holy Moulding!
If you liked the fireplace headboard idea from earlier, but don’t have one to work with, here’s the alternative! This mantel moulding headboard is creative and stunning. It’s going to take some wood, plywood, and a lot of moulding. You’re essentially going to create a mantle out of moulding to make it look like there’s a real one behind your bed. Once you’re done, you have yourself a beautiful mantle headboard that you can paint any color you would like to match your decor.
#25. Simple Salvaged Wood Headboard
This is a take on the salvaged wood headboard from earlier, but it’s much easier to create. This one takes old barnwood or old pieces of wood similar to it and making a large square headboard out of them. I was honestly considering doing this for a whole room on the walls, but I think i’m just going to create the headboard instead! It’s super easy and may only cost you a few dollars.
#26. Stikwood Headboard
This idea combines a bedframe from IKEA and some stikwood. It’s kind of like a puzzle when it comes to putting it all together, but the end result is pretty cool. The wood pieces look as if they are different sizes, but they are just placed differently from each other. If you don’t want to spend the money on the frame from IKEA, you could probably use an alternative such as plywood or some other type of board that you can stick the wood to.
#27. Doormats In The Bedroom
This is a pretty awesome idea and I may actually try this in my bedroom. It involves using doormats and some plywood to recreate the West Elm Morocco headboard without paying the price. You can spray paint the doormats and stick them to the plywood that you cut to fit behind your bed. It’s going to cost around $100 total for a queen size as opposed to the $400 pre-made headboard from West Elm.
#28. Barn Doors
I’ve seen these used as entertainment center doors and room separators, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen them used as a headboard. For this idea, you’ll have to make a frame for the back of the bed out of planks. You then make the barn door design out of the wood with three simple pieces. Once it’s done, it’ll look like a real barn door as opposed to one that you made yourself. It’s very country-like and unique.
#29. Simple Wooden Headboard
This is about as simple as it gets for a DIY headboard idea. It involves using 1 x 6’s and a 1 x 3 all put together. They used a dark walnut color as the stain which gives this headboard a beautiful dark look. All together, it cost around $25 to make. It’s a quick solution if you’re looking for something different in your bedroom and only takes a short amount of time to create.
#30. Staggered Barnwood
If you want something very unique and don’t have OCD of any kind, then this is a very simple project for you to do. All you need is some old barnwood planks and something to secure them to if you don’t want to screw the right to the wall. This look doesn’t require measuring and each time it’s done, it’ll look unique and nobody will have the same one as you. Pretty cool in my opinion.
#31. Chic Cedar Planks
This is a spin on an earlier idea, but without the floral upholstery. This headboard is simple and made from cedar planks. All you have to do is find some paper from the dollar store, like wrapping paper, and cut out your design. You then trace it onto the planks that you stuck together and cut it with your saw. Once you’re done priming and/or painting, you have a chic headboard that only cost a few dollars.
#32. Floating Headboard
This is another super easy design to make yourself. All you need are a few 1 x 6 boards, some stain, and command strips that can hold up to 16 pounds, unless you would rather screw the planks into the wall. This idea creates a floating headboard look and requires very minimal effort for something extremely beautiful and simple. You can use whatever color stain you want or you can paint it a funky color to match anything in your bedroom.
#33. Plaster Lath Headboard
If you’ve recently come across some plaster walls, here’s something that you can make out of them. If you carefully remove the lath from the walls and hammer out all of the nails that are in them, you can repurpose them for a headboard. Make sure the ends are cut clean, measure them up against each other, and position them onto the plywood after securing it to the wall. If you want to make it look cleaner, attach some trim to the outside of it and finish by lightly sanding and applying a fishing color to it.
DIY Fabric and Upholstered Headboard Ideas
#34. Lots Of Fabric & Time
If you know how to sew and have a lot of spare time on your hands to make this creation, then listen up. For this project, you have to do a lot of measuring and cutting. You can pick out any fabric you desire, but you have to make sure you have enough for the size of your headboard. Once you figure that out, match the plywood to the size of the fabric and attach it. There’s a lot more to it, but that’s the short version. The end result is a stunning fabric headboard of your own creation.
#35. Fabric Squares
I really like the design of this headboard and the fabric that is used. You can choose whatever kind you want to make it your own creation. You then have to buy some backer board and cut them to size. You then have to do the same thing with foam such as that of a memory foam topper to make the popped out look on the head board. This pattern is pretty neat and looks as if it cost a lot when it really didn’t.
#36. Perfectly Upholstered
This headboard looks like something that you would pick up at an expensive furniture store, but really, it’s something that you can make from some plywood, upholstery, and nailheads. This project does take some planning, drawing, and a whole lot of effort. The best part about these upholstery headboards is that you can choose any fabric you desire. You don’t have to settle for the crummy pre-made ones in the store. This headboard, however, is beautiful.
#37. Simple Headboard With Nail Trim
This is the simplified version of the previous design but equally as beautiful. Again, you can pick any fabric you desire, but these guys went with a simple off white and tan color with dark nailheads. This design doesn’t require any kind of special skills, unless using a staple gun is a special skill. Make sure you keep the fabric tight and once you’re done, you’ll have a stunning creation of your own.
#38. Slipcover
For this really easy project, all you need is some fabric, a sewing machine, and a little bit of time. You can use this over the headboard you have now or you can find an old one from a thrift shop or garage sale and use that instead. This is the perfect project for those who like frequent change in decor. You can make multiple slipcovers and change them out whenever you want to change up the look of your room. If you want to add a monogram, you can take the cover to an embroidery shop or paint it on yourself.
DIY Headboards With Lights
#39. Lighted “Sleepover” Headboard
This is a very unique idea and one that is actually really simple to do if you have the right tools. This headboard was created for a children’s guest room and all you need is a projector, some string lights, a pencil and some black paint. Outline the word you’re using, such as “sleepover” in this case, drill the holes for the lights, paint the letters black, and pop the lights through. Having a headboard that can easily hide the wires well will work best. The end result is a beautiful lighted creation.
#40. Simple String Light Headboard
This idea is about as simple as it gets and you can use whatever color lights you want for your creation. All you need to do is trace your design with painters’ tape and use cord clips to fasten the lights to the wall. This headboard looks like a gabled roof with a chimney and it can double as a nightlight if you like to read or do crafts in bed. The best part is that this headboard only costs a few dollars.
#41. Pythagorean Tree Fractal
This creation is stunning and I could only imagine what my room would look like with one of these headboards. It features a lightbox silhouette effect with an LED backlight. You can easily make this headboard out of thick plywood, a LED light strip, and some diffusive paper, amongst other odds and ends for tools. The end result is breathtaking and will only cost you a fraction of the price a premade one would.
#42. Backlit Floating Headboard
If you have some spare flooring laying around, you can use it for this magnificent creation. All they did to make this was attach the old flooring to some MDF backing and trimmed it. They then attached the headboard to the wall with stud mounted french cleats and lit the back of it with 15’ of LED lighting. They also put it on a dimmer switch so they could control how much light comes through. This is a pretty awesome idea if you ask me.
#43. Lighted Pallet Headboard
This headboard looks similar to something that you would pay top dollar for at IKEA or another furniture retail store. It features beautifully lit cubby holes to place your small belongings such as the remote, a cellphone, books, and whatever else you need to store. It’s a beautiful rustic creation that looks professionally done.
#44. Jurassic Park Gate
If you are a fan of the movie “Jurassic Park”, then this headboard is right up your alley. Remember that iconic gate from the movie that brings you into the park? These genius creators recreated the gate to use as a headboard, but it wasn’t easy. It took a lot of materials, time, and creativity. The end result is pretty awesome and the lights on the side make the whole thing that much better. It’ll create enough light to illuminate your bed for reading.
DIY Headboards With Shelves
You may want to read: The Best Headboards for Your Bedroom
#45. Shelves & Drawers Galore
If you want a funky headboard that features shelves and drawers, this is it. This creation is made entirely of old drawers that were converted into shelves. You can take them out of old dressers and mount them to the wall, making whatever design you want. This is a great idea for a child’s bedroom so that they have plenty of space to store books, decorations and more.
#46. Hidden Shelves & Cat Run
Sick of your cat knocking everything off of your nightstand or headboard? This nifty cat run and hidden shelf headboard is a great solution. It incorporates many different shelves that are hidden with the rock design. You cat can run around the inside of it as they please without disturbing you. The hidden door is a pretty neat idea as well. You can store your valuables inside of it and nobody would ever know it’s there.
DIY Tufted Headboard Ideas
#47. Tufted Headboard With Nailheads
We’ve seen this idea a few times on the list, but this one includes nailheads and those cute cover buttons. This headboard will be a beautiful addition to any bedroom and you can use whatever fabric you want that’ll go with the flow of your room. Believe it or not, this awesome piece was made for just $93! The best part is that you can also use whatever design headboard you want, it doesn’t have to look like the one in the picture.
#48. Repurposed Dresser Mirror
Check out this awesome piece! It was repurposed from an old dresser mirror using some paint and tufting where the glass used to be. The fabric used is a beautiful purple that would look fabulous in a child’s bedroom or a guest room. The addition of those cover buttons also makes it a great piece of furniture. It’s amazing what you can make out of material that you would think serves no purpose!
#49. Diamond Tufted
The diamond tufted look is beautiful in my opinion. I love how it gives it a vintage and elegant feel all at the same time. This particular design is super easy to make and you can use whatever fabric you want and any color. This look is all topped off with nailheads around the edges for an even more elegant look.
#50. Simple Button Tufted Headboard
The button tufted idea seems to be very popular, mostly because it’s really easy to recreate. This design is about as simple as it gets when it comes to tufted buttons. This headboard is made from pegboard, some foam, and the buttons. The finished look is both beautiful and vintage. If you aren’t a fan of the dark color that was used, feel free to pick a different one to brighten your room up.
#51. Funky & Tufted
This tufted headboard is funky and colorful. It would be the perfect addition to a child’s room or anyone looking to switch it up a little bit with their decor. It does take a little bit of work to get this look with this style headboard, but the end result is pretty darn awesome if you ask me. Check out those buttons, too! They’re very colorful and the whole thing reminds me of pistachio ice cream with rainbow sprinkles.
Conclusion
There you have it! 51 pretty awesome and unique DIY headboard ideas. I love all of the designs on this list and most of them are pretty simple to make at home with just a few tools and materials, depending on the type of project. A lot of these are recreations of what you could find in an expensive retail store, but only cost a fraction of the price. If you have the time and energy, I suggest making your own headboard! It could be a fun project for you and a partner! If you enjoyed reading this list as much as I enjoyed writing it, share, share, share! You can also drop us a comment below if you have any ideas of your own.