Our Gilded Abode: Guest Room

Our recent foyer console table build provided motivation to create a wood plank lighted headboard for our guest room.

Materials used for queen size headboard:

Four 1"x10" boards cut to 5' long
Two 1"x4" boards cut to 37" long
Brad nailer and 2" brads
2" screws to attach support boards to wall studs
Two wall lamps with wall plugs
2-1/2" hole saw
Two 1" wood screws (for mounting lamps to headboard)
Level
Wood stain
Fine sandpaper

Four boards were found in our stash of scrap wood. They were 1" x 10" and each had a totally different wood tone. The shortest was actually a 1" piece of plywood (looked like a board to me!). I was unsure if wood stain would unify these but took a chance that they would blend together once stained.

LOTS of hand sanding and two coats of Minwax Dark Walnut stain resulted in a beautiful and smooth finish. And, thankfully the stain looked even and uniform - or as close as possible.

For lighting, we searched Lowe's and Home Depot and looked in all departments - interior, exterior and utility lighting. While there were lots of awesome options, many were too large.

We selected two of these from Home Depot in brushed nickel:

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Hampton-Bay-5-1-in-Brushed-Nickel-LED-Spotlight-Desk-Lamp-19274-002/205749849?cm_mmc=shopping-_-bingpa-_-27-_-205749849&ci_src=328768002&ci_sku=205749849&gclid=CIny3MSry8wCFeSAMgodyjgCPg&gclsrc=ds

Hampton Bay Brushed Nickel Lamp

Hubby drilled holes in the top board and dropped each lamp's wall plug through the hole. These would be hidden behind the headboard. The lamps were attached to the top board with a 1" wood screw - each lamp had a predrilled hole in the back plate and these slipped easily and snugly onto the mounting screws.

We chose to attach the headboard directly to the wall and first installed two 37" 1x4's vertically, using 2" screws to attach them to wall studs.

The stained boards were then attached horizontally to the support boards using a brad nailer and 2" brads. For a more rustic look, you could use wood screws to attach the boards, but I wanted a sleeker look with no exposed screw or nail heads.

Even though the board below looks deceivingly slanted, it's all an illusion - it really is level.

The finished dimensions are 5' wide x 37" tall. It was tempting to add even more boards for a much taller headboard, but I wanted space above to hang a piece of metal art.

This was a fun project and I love how a few scrap boards can provide such impact and function in our guest room!

Thank you to these wonderful bloggers for featuring this project:
Julie at Julie's Lifestyle
Kathryn at The Dedicated House
Marty at A Stroll Thru Life
Christine at Must Love Home
Suzanne at The Painted Drawer
Jennifer at My Flagstaff Home

Your comments are greatly appreciated and I look forward to your thoughts and ideas! I try to respond to comments via email as soon as I can. If your email address isn't available, I will comment here. Thanks so much for visiting!