Hi All!
For those of you who took the under on the DIY headboard bet, you win! And, for those of you who thought it would take more than 6 months I don’t blame you- I’ve been traveling so much lately that I didn’t think I’d have time to get to it soon, but Paul and I completed it 2 weeks ago and I love it!  First, I have to give MAJOR props to Paul- he helped me way more than he wanted and he did it all while being pretty tired from a late night out the night before for his birthday.  He really deserves a huge gold star, so THANK YOU PAUL! But, his help also demonstrated that you really do need 2 people for this job, at least the upholstery part.  So, definitely keep that in mind!

You all pretty much know that Paul and I still rent and our apartment is pretty small (all 680 sq. ft of it- gotta love Bay Area living!), so it’s been hard for me to make it our “own” when we’re limited in what we can do (can’t paint walls, add different hardware, etc.).  I’ve always wanted a headboard since our box spring and mattress just sit on a metal frame and thought it would be the perfect opportunity to insert some of my own personal style.  Here are some inspirational photos from which I worked:

And, here’s the before picture of our bed:

A before shot

 Nothing special, right?   I should say that Paul and I are a tad bit obsessed with this bed. A few words about the mattress: I bought it about 2 1/2 years ago after bargaining like crazy at a big name mattress store (word of advice- never pay the ticket price on a mattress. They are totally willing to bargain!) and I got it for ~1,000 less than what they priced it at!  It was an awesome buy because of the bargaining, but it turns out that it really is an amazing bed.  It’s so comfy, has a pillow-top, and is affectionately known as a “black hole” between Paul and I and a few friends who have gotten the chance to sleep in it because once you’re in it you never want to get out of it.  My brother loved it so much he went back to MD to buy it only to find out they don’t sell this model anymore It’s a Sealy pillow-top mattress so if you’re in the market for one, check out their models! Anyways, I digress…

Instead of getting too text heavy here I’ll just jump right into the steps….

Materials Needed:
-Plywood (we have a California King bed so we got a 6×4 piece of 1/2-inch thick plywood from Home Depot- they can pre-cut it there for you).  You basically want it as wide as your bed to cover that dimension and depending on how tall you want it above the mattress you can pick the height.
-A jigsaw (this is only needed if you choose to do a more “ornate”cut like we did.  A regular saw or Home Depot’s cut can suffice if you just want a rectangle shape)
-Saw horses
-A chalk line (optional- only helps with cutting)
-A compass (optional- only if you do an ornate design like we did. We “made” one with just a permanent marker and string)
-2-inch foam to cover the surface of the board (I got a Queen sized mattress foam pad and it was enough to cover our size headboard)
-Spray adhesive (optional)
-Sharp bread knife
-Quilt batting or muslin to cover the foam and hold it in place
-Staple gun
-Sandpaper
-Fabric (be bold! Pick a fun design and colors that will help brighten up your room! We got ours from Fabrics.com)
-Mounting equipment (we chose to just hang our headboard on the wall so it would be a floating headboard vs. attaching it to our frame.  Picture of exact mounting equipment below)

Steps:

1. Set up your plywood on your saw horses for cutting. Use the chalk line or other kind of marker to indicate where you’d like to make the cuts for the indentations.

Plywood all set up!

A chalkline

Chalkline #1

Chalkline #2

The link below is a horrible draft of the template we were using as our design (note: this is obviously not drawn to scale….): (the red lines indicate the chalk line marks) (headboard template)

2. Starting that the lower chalk line use your compass and measure a 12″ radius and make a curve that goes up to the top chalk line. You should end up with something like this:

Using a makeshift compass

Curve #1

Repeat for the other side.

3. For the top curve/half circle use the same radius of 12″and draw a half circle starting at the exact midpoint of top chalkline.  You’ll see in the PDF design template sketch that it says 6″ on each side of the headboard, but we didn’t really follow that in reality.  The 12″ radius starting at the midpoint of the top chalkline was the driving dimension for the half circle up top.

Creating the top half circle

4. Make all the cuts using the jigsaw. Don’t forget to wear safety goggles!

best husband ever

love this tool!

5. Lay the cut plywood on top of the foam. Trace the shape of the headboard on the foam using a permanent marker and then remove the plywood so you can use the bread knife to cut it out. You’ll want a good, sharp knife so that cutting is easy.  I am biased towards Shun knives, they are the best! That’s for another post though….

let the tracing begin!

All traced on the foam

love my Shun knives!

All set to go!

One note about foam: Foam is crazy expensive these days because oil prices are so high and that affects foam prices because foam is a petroleum-based product.  You can try to buy foam from a retailer that sells it or even go to a crafts store, but they were actually way more expensive than just buying a mattress foam topper from Amazon.  It was still the most expensive item I needed for the project, but you’ll definitely want to line the board with foam to give it a nice cushion and I’d say 2-inch is the minimum thickness you’ll want.

6. Put the plywood back on the saw horses and then lay the foam on top of it.  You can use spray adhesive first to help it stick, but the only adhesive spray I had on hand was for stencils so it’s not made to be super sticky.  Therefore, I skipped out on that step and think it’s fine as long as you make sure to staple the foam in place using the quilt batting or muslin.

7. Use your staple gun and pull the quilt batting or muslin TIGHTLY over the foam and staple it in place.  I started on the easiest straight side and worked my way around.  Once you get a few sides complete you can pull the headboard off the saw horses and stand it upright to make stapling easier.  By the end my hand was so sore and was in a permanent claw position.

8. Final step (well, almost!)- upholstering!  I HIGHLY recommend getting someone to help you for this step.  After the cutting of the plywood, Paul went inside and I did all the other steps, but after stapling the quilt batting my hand hurt so much that I called Paul down to help with the fabric part. I’m so glad I did because it really can’t be done without another person helping you, especially around the curves.

9. So, lay the fabric over the board and again, work your way around it, stapling it in place.  You’ll want to really pull the fabric tight over the whole board so you don’t have any wrinkles and so it helps keep the foam in place.  The curves were the hardest part and we even had to redo one side since it didn’t look right (you could see folds). The only advice I can give is to make “V” cuts in the fabric as you go along the curves to help give you more slack, but don’t make the TOO deep or else the rip will show.  You’ll want to sort of work your way around the curve, starting at one end and then folding over the pieces as you work your way around it and then stapling them in place.  It will definitely require some patience and work, but it’s totally doable and I think you’ll find it was well worth all the effort!
Oh, and if you have a patterned fabric vs. a solid color make sure you line up the pattern the way you want. We tried to center ours with the big circles on each side.

Getting the fabric all lined up

So, enough talk…pictures!  Here’s how it looked when we (and by “we”, I mean Paul- he did all the stapling for the fabric part! Best.Husband.Ever.) finished putting on the fabric:

so pretty

getting the curves perfectly smooth

Do you love?! I hope you do- it’s my new favorite thing in the apartment The 2-inch foam gives it such a nice cushion and the whole piece really helps the room stand out.  Paul helped mount it but using this kit:

Make sure to get a mounting kit that can hold all the weight!

This little guy can hold the whole thing!

In the end the whole bed looked like this:

my new favorite thing

We swapped out the busy duvet cover with a solid, white Frette one (by the way, Frette makes unbelievable bedding if anyone is in the market for some. And, no, I did not spend that much $ on the cover. I got it during a mega sale! I have One Kings Lane to think for that), and I’m still looking for some new Euro shams to replace the yellow ones. I’m thinking a grey or blue to pull out those colors on the headboard.  Those have been more difficult to find than I thought though!

A few more shots of our new bed to leave you with:

our new sleeping space

the foam gives it such great cushion and thickness!

So, there you have it! A DIY headboard that really is pretty easy to do! I’d say in total it took a total of 4 hours to get done and hung. Not bad at all- definitely a feasible weekend project.  Next up: re-doing the nightstands (I can’t keep that dark brown with my new bright, white bed!) and our dining room table. My goal for those to be completed is one month- let’s see if that happens…

Happy Wednesday!

xoxo

This post is mainly inspired because my dear friend, Emily, is moving from San Francisco back to MD this week. She came out here 3 years ago, basically a year after I arrived in the Bay Area, and is headed to Georgetown’s MBA program in the Fall. I’m so happy for her, but am also not so secretly upset that she is leaving me and taking her dog Sumo with her….So, today I dedicate this post to you, Emily, and to all my other girlfriends…

This NY Times article came out awhile ago, but things have been so hectic with me that I haven’t had the time to sit down and blog about it.  With Emily’s departure this week I knew I had to get it out soon.  For me, the article provided me scientific proof for what I’ve believed my whole life: friends are good for our health.  (Further reading on the same subject can be found here).  It gives animal examples of how relationships between other animals, particularly among females, are beneficial, citing African elephants and barnyard mice, blue monkeys of Kenya and feral horses of New Zealand. Researchers have even observed that among female chacma baboons with strong bonds between each other stress hormone levels are lower, life expectancy is longer and the chances of rearing a greater number of offspring to independence than their less socialized peers is higher.  In addition, “wild mares with female friends are harassed less often by stallions and have more surviving foals than do mares that lack social ties. Female mice allowed to choose a friend as a nesting partner will bear more pups than females forced to share straw space with a mouse they dislike.”  These examples, among others in the 2 articles, are so interesting to me because they really do reinforce what I have believed in for so long; my friends are the bedrock of my life, and that’s not even the slightest exaggeration (note: I consider my family members to be part of my umbrella term of “friends”).  They have provided me with unconditional love and support, hours of laughter, and the most amazing conversion…

There’s Emily, who I have mentioned before on the blog, who has become the greatest friend I could ask for. No topic is off limits and we basically tell each other everything (to much of the chagrin of our SO’s).  We tell people we’ve known each other since “baby times” (it’s true!) and I’m so happy I’ve gotten to work and live with her here in SF.  She has a high code of ethnics and pushes me to be just as moral as she is in every situation. Having her here in San Francisco has been one of the best parts of moving to CA and I really can’t imagine what it will be like not to have the option of having her a 20 minute drive away…

Emily and I way back in Cancun!

Go Card!

Perhaps my favorite picture of Emily and I

Then, there’s A and P (I won’t use full names going forward since I haven’t talked to them about being on the blog yet) who are just the sweetest people you’d ever meet. I’ve known them since we were all 4 years old and we went through all of Pre-First, Lower, Middle, and High School together.  The two of them and their family are my second family and even though I’ve moved 3,000 miles away from them we remain just as close as when we were giddy teenagers talking about boys.  We’ve been in each others’ weddings and plan on raising our kids to be best friends as well.  They are both just the most consistent friends I have, and I love them so much.

P, me, and A the night I got engaged!

me and A at her bachelorette party!

P helping me on my wedding day

There’s L, whose friendship is so deep and reliable it’s hard to put into words. She’s probably the one I joke around with the most- we’ve been known to laugh ourselves into tears on many occasions.  She’s so supportive of everything I do and is the best at keeping in touch with me across the country.  She’s fiercely protective of her friends and I know she would do anything for me.

L and I last Fall

Having attended an all-girls school all my life up until college and playing field hockey at Georgetown, I could go on and on about all the girlfriends I consider to be in my tight circle.  But, for lack of time and space I’ll stop my individual shout outs there (know that I love you all though!).  I’m so fortunate to have a group of friends who I know I could go to for anything and they would never judge me. And, Paul and I are lucky that we’ve found a semi-new (still new if we’ve been here 4-5 years already?) circle in CA after leaving basically everything and everyone we knew behind in MD.

So, to close things up- cherish your friends. Make time for them. And above all, be a good friend yourself. More and more research is showing the benefits of having a close circle of friends and how it can improve your health.  It can have profound psychological effects and that’s often overlooked.  So, today I challenge you to do something really nice for a friend, even if it’s just calling them and telling them how much you love them

Hoya Loves

D and I

girlfriends at M's wedding

K and I

love my ladies

Oh, and if you haven’t started watching Girls on HBO (the thing that sparked the NY Times to write this article in the first place), I highly recommend it! I describe it as dark Sex in the City, but you really have to watch if yourself to get a feel for it. It can be a little odd and depressing at times, but then there’s moments of brilliance and hilarity.  It’s getting lots of buzz and for good reason!  And, I love that the show’s creator/main actress (Lena Dunham) says the female friendship is  “the true romance of the show.”

Happy Monday!
xoxo

Today is Paul’s birthday so this week’s post will be short and sweet.

Happy birthday, Paul! You are the love of my life and I can’t imagine life without you.

It’s crazy to think we’ve known each other for 14 years and that after 6 years apart we winded up back together.

Our story is rare and everyday I remind myself how lucky we are to have ended up together.  (If you don’t know our story, you can read more about it here)

You love being silly with me and make me laugh so much.

You’ve helped me start a whole new life here in the Bay Area and it has become home for us.

Our wedding day was the best day of my life.

I can’t wait for what the upcoming years have in store for us!

So, happy birthday, my love!

xoxo