Upcycled Reclaimed Wood Headboard

I wanted to do something a little nicer for a headboard and I saw this weathered wood at home depot. These reclaimed wood headboards are popular right now with places like West Elm and Crate and Barrel. It's really easy to just add some thin wood to an existing headboard.

1 - HEADBOARD I started with a cheap Ikea head bed frame, the one used is the TRYSIL but I suppose you could do this with almost any headboard.

2 - WOOD I found these handy boxes of "Weathered Wallboards" at home depot for $25, you can use any wood you have around, but this was an easy way to get a nice varied mix of woods. One box was almost perfectly sized for a queen bed.

3 - MITER BOX W/SAW these are really cheap and will help you get a reasonably straight cut.

4 - GLUE I used liquid nails, very strong glue, because the headboard is cheap particle board I didn't feel like nails or screws would work.

5 - CLAMPS so many clamps, it's a little tough actually to do this after the bed is already made because you have so many varied pieces so I started clamping each piece then as you'll see switched up my approach.

6 - POLYURETHANE I wasn't planning too but I ended up using a matte polyurethane for protection and a little bit to reduce the risk of splinters.

I like a nice variety of sizes to make it look a bit random. So I measured the headboard which was 59 7/8" wide and tall enough for 6 boards.

For the first row I lay two boards end to end and marked at 59 7/8" then cut the board.

For the next board up, cut the first one at a different length then measure up against another and cut to the length of your headboard, continue with the rest of the boards.

Lay them out in advance to mix the colors well!

Spread your glue evenly on the boards.

Clamp them in place, as you'll see in the photos, I started clamping each individual board and switched to putting all the boards up and laying a boards across, clamped on the top and bottom.

I like the look of the raw wood but I was afraid eventually dust and oil could stain it, so I put on some polyurethane with a matte finish to keep it as natural as possible.

As you can see in the photos I ended up putting another piece of wood along the edge, it's just pine stained with "special walnut" and I had a second box of wood so I covered the rest of the frame as well.

This project was really easy, it ended up taking me almost a week thanks to few clamps and 24 hour glue drying time. With the right tools I think it could be cut and glued one day and finished the next. I am happy with how it came out for the money I invested, about $70 (it's only that high because I bought 2 boxes of wood) it came out really nice, similar mixed wood beds are a couple thousand at fancy stores.