Pinterest Project: Operation “massive swanky upholstered headboard”

So, I took on Katie, Sherry, Ana and Erin’s challenge and joined the Pinterest Challenge, Fall Edition. Yesterday I posted my original inspiration from Decorpad, here’s a reminder:

Swoon!

Without further ado; and because I hope the pictures will say more about how far this project has progressed than I can say in two bagillion words… here are the results of this weekends labours on “Operation massive swanky upholstered headboard”.

I’m not writing a full breakdown of how I did this – but only because Kristi has already written one which you can find here if you want to brave this for yourself!

For anyone brave enough to try upholstering a headboard themselves, I learnt the following lessons – the hard way! Take heed now and save yourself the bother!

• Before drilling the holes through your MDF board, check your drill bit is slightly wider than your upholstery needle (this will save you having to wriggle and yank it through the hole every. single. time. like I did!)
• Really do make the holes in the foam (which the buttons will ‘sit’ in) big enough to drop the button in; it’ll make pulling the wadding and fabric in to create the ‘tuft’ much easier and you won’t have to pull so hard on the button cord.
• Wear gloves when it comes to pulling the button cord through and holding it tight to staple on the back, I almost ripped my hands to shreds pulling through and holding the cord taught while stapling 32 buttons!
• Don’t be afraid to bling it up! I was worried about using glass buttons instead of spending the extra time to cover upholstery buttons in matching fabric, but I’m glad to have added the bling in the end – it definitely added “swank”!

You might also notice that the bedroom has changed colour, and had coving installed around the ceiling… all part of our massive overhaul from “just a young couple sharing a house” to “grown up married people style” – but that’s for another post when the whole job is complete.

6 months in, and a pinteresting challenge…

This weekend marked 6 months since our wedding. I can hardly believe it, time has flown by so fast! Our first summer as a married couple has been amazing, we’ve spent time to celebrate with both our families, travelled to some great new places together, started some new traditions and made some fantastic progress on making our little house a really special marital home. One of the main things we’ve been working on is our master bedroom. Since moving into our house four years ago, our bedroom remained the only room we’d not made any changes to. On returning from our honeymoon, I set my sights on making our bedroom a restful haven and something more “grown-up and married” and less “teenage and temporary”!

The biggest inspiration in doing this project has to be Pinterest. I only discovered Pinterest late this summer, but boy have I got hooked! In fact, half the reason my blogging has totally slipped of late has been due to my spending an inordinate amount of time whiling away the hours pinning inspiration for DIY projects, and not actually getting very far with actually completing any projects (and therefore having nothing to blog except a head full of too many ideas and a life too busy to produce anything blog-worthy!). In addition, I have been avidly following Young House Love for the last few weeks as well, and when Sherry and Katie (of Bower Power) launched the first “Pinterest challenge” back in July I really wanted to take part, but I didn’t quite get off my procrastinating butt in time. So yesterday when Katie and Sherry announced the second Pinterest challenge, I was supremely excited and this time round I am determined to play along as well!

So, what to make? Well, as lady luck would have it, this time I happened to have all my materials ready and raring to go. Our bedroom redecoration is pretty much done now; we’ve put up coving, painted the walls a beautiful restful blue-green (Stepping Stone by Crown Solo) and begun to replace our mis-mash of tired pine furniture (a throwback to my teenage years!) with lovely grown up deep mahogany solid wood (which we’re currently scouring ebay for). What’s missing is the showpiece for this makeover. Our new bed; or rather the swanky luxe upholstered headboard which I plan to make to adorn the new bed! I’ve been pinning these for weeks now, and finally finished gathering materials right when Sherry and Katie threw down their latest Pinterest gauntlet, hurrah! So this weekend was spent spent drilling, stapling, upholstering and buttoning my way to headboard heaven and I’ll be back tomorrow to share the finished article in all its glory!

In the meantime, here’s my Bedroom Makeover Pinterest board: and here’s my inspiration:

Source: Decorpad

Originally pinned by Marie-Claude Dube-Landry

Oh! hello

Well hi there… welcome to the new (and hopefully rather more permanent) home for the adventures from Casa Penn. Perhaps you found your way here from the home of our wedding planning blog, or maybe you actually know us in real life and wandered casually over via Facebook. However you got here though, welcome! There’s not a whole lot to see right now, but check back often for updates as we embark on the good ship Newlywed. There’ll be plenty of adventures and projects to see as we travel on our journey so we hope you’ll walk along with us awhile.