23 Inventive DIY Headboard Plans [FREE LIST] - MyMyDIY | Inspiring DIY Projects (2024)

In this post, we compiled 23 DIY headboard plans.

There are some truly imaginative blueprints, as well as some basic designs if you want to hammer something together in an afternoon.

Some of the more inventive designs include storage compartments, LED designs and even one made from an upcycled chalkboard.

Scroll through our list and click the View Plans button to access the plans and pdfs.

1. Basic Headboard Project

This is a simple headboard that is easy to make and great for renters – nothing needs to be drilled into the wall and you can easily change this up.

Simply cut some medium-density fiberboard to size, attach some LED spotlights behind it, and put it behind your bed.

The headboard should stay in place with the force and resistance of your mattress leaning it against the wall.

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2. Pine Headboard Idea

To make this wooden headboard, cut a few planks of pine and sand them. Use a 2×2 as a frame and nail the planks into position.

Once everything is assembled, you can stain or polish the wood.

This designer spray painted two vertical silver lines on to the side, though you can leave the headboard blank to showcase the grain of the wood or paint a design yourself.

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3. LED Headboard Project

This headboard was built to make it easier to read at night without the lights on, but the LED backlight also just adds a cool and modern feel to the room.

Composed of 2x4s, the frame has three open panels where the lights will go. Once the lights and plexiglass installed, you’re ready to mount this to the wall and plug it in.

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4. Woven Headboard Plan

This is a great easy and inexpensive DIY idea – the wood and materials shouldn’t cost you more than $30.

To make this at home, cut the plywood and lay out the strips to mark the edges of the cross strips.

Like making a lattice pie, you’ll need to cut and flip the strips over onto each other. When you have the pattern ready, glue or nail the boards together.

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5. “Tardis” Headboard Plan

If you’re a fan of Doctor Who, this headboard is the perfect DIY project for you to make.

If you just want to focus on the design, you can buy a basic headboard from IKEA or Home Depot. You can either paint faux windows or nail wooden strips in a grid to give texture. Apply a few coats of blue paint and use stencils to write the lettering.

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6. Lightsaber Headboard Blueprint

A great DIY idea for kids, this headboard is directly out of Star Wars. Required materials for this project include PVC pipe, LED light strip, glitter spray paint, electrical tape, a piece of wood, and some pool noodles.

You can even buy toy lightsabers and just build an insert for them in the headboard if you don’t want to try and make your own.

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7. Hippie Inspired Headboard Idea

This bohemian headboard is fun to make and lets you show off your creative side.

You’ll need some thick plywood, joiner biscuits, wood glue, various colors of paint, a paintbrush, clothespins, and a jigsaw.

If you want to make an ombre effect, you’ll need to divide your clothespins equally and soak them in different color dyes for about half an hour. Attach around the perimeter and paint on your design.

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8. Custom Headboard Blueprint

This headboard was made to also stand behind two bedside tables, so it is a great example of a custom built headboard.

Costing only $150, you just need some medium density fiberboard, wood slats, a power drill, foam, and a table saw.

You can even drill holes to make it easier to hide cables – because you’re making this for your bedroom, you can really make it personal.

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9. Wooden Pallet Headboard Idea

If you come across some wooden pallets, never throw them away.

If you follow this DIY plan, you can make a headboard using wood stain, black paint, screws, polyurethane, and some power tools. Disassembling the pallet can be a headache, but you will need to do so you can sand and rearrange the wood.

Then you can screw it all together and apply your different stains.

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10. Upholstered Headboard Project

This DIY plan is simple to follow and provides a unique touch to the bedroom.

You’ll need some home decorating fabric, wooden panels, a strong glue, foam, staple gun, and plywood. Simply cut the foam and fabric into panels and staple them together. Then arrange them and glue them onto the plywood backing. Let that dry for at least 24 hours and you’re done.

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11. Pallet and LED Headboard Plan

This headboard is a great combination of rustic and modern design. Measure your bed frame to figure out the dimensions needed and use the old pallets to make a frame of that size. Sand the entire thing and apply a few coats of polyurethane.

Then attach some LED light bars in the open panels and affix the headboard to the wall.

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12. Padded Headboard Blueprint

If you love to sit up and watch television in bed, this is a great headboard for you – it is angled to support your back as you’re laying against it.

To make this at home, you will need some 2x6s, plywood, mounting brackets, mattress foam, and some nice fabric or upholstery to cover it with. This shouldn’t take long to build and only costs around $60 to make.

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13. Chalkboard Headboard Idea

Instead of buying wood, this DIYer repurposed an old door and used that as a base for the headboard.

You can do the same or buy some plywood. You’ll also need some chalkboard paint, screws, a power drill, and painter’s tape. Cut the frame to fit the size of your bed, sand it down, and apply a few layers of paint.

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14. Upcycled Lath Headboard Project

If you happened to have recently renovated your house, you may have come across some lath. These thin strips of wood are perfect for small DIY projects like this one. Just hammer out the nails, trim the ends, and figure out how you want to position everything.

Use a piece of plywood as a frame and mount that to the wall before nailing the lath pieces into place.

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15. Chevron Headboard Blueprint

This DIY project gets very creative, with the builder using a patterned shower curtain instead of buying a large amount of fabric with the same pattern on it.

Simply make a basic wooden frame, stretch the curtain around it, and staple the excess fabric underneath it.

This also allows you to easily buy another curtain and swap out the look.

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16. Reclaimed Wood Headboard Plan

This DIY plan couldn’t be simpler and you’ll end up with a modern and chic headboard that would cost hundreds of dollars at a furniture store.

Using an inexpensive Ikea headboard as a base, the builder glued some weathered wall panels from Home Depot onto the surface. Just let the glue dry, apply a few coats of polyurethane, and you have a brand new look to your bedroom.

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17. Book Collage Headboard Idea

Do you love to read? This is a great DIY project that lets you personalize your space.

Use an X-acto knife to cut the spines away from the pages of the books you want to use. Using a sheet of plywood as a base, use a strong glue to start gluing the covers in a pattern you like. Don’t forget to let this layer dry before starting the next one.

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18. Jurassic Park Headboard Idea

This DIY project is a bit ambitious, but the end result looks exactly like the gate in everyone’s favorite dinosaur movie.

Required materials include a circular saw, furnace cement, plywood, mahogany decking, clamps, kreg jig, and textured spray paint.

Experienced woodworkers would likely have no problem building this, though there are step by step photos and instructions to help beginners as well.

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19. Fast and Easy Upholstered Headboard Project

If you want something quick and easy to build, this is a great option. Building this headboard only took the designer two and a half hours.

You’ll need things like upholstery thread, foam mattress pads or some kind of cushioning, buttons, plywood or pine, upholstery fabric, and a staple gun. Adding the buttons really bring this up a notch and make it look like professional.

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20. Headboard and Bedside Tables in One Plan

This builder ingeniously built two nightstands into the headboard frame of the bed. This also only cost him $30 to build, though he had a good number of the supplies needed on hand. The headboard is made to look like a wooden fence, with strips of Douglas fir lined up and screwed together.

The bedside tables are easy to build, though you also buy a cheap pair from Ikea and use those.

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21. Backlight LED Headboard Blueprint

A great physical computing challenge, this headboard is modern and will become the centerpiece of your room.

You’ll need things like an LED light strip, diffusive paper, wood glue, power adapter, plywood, remote control, and some sandpaper. The tree fractal design was made with a laser cutter, though you could cut this by hand or pay for a laser cutting service.

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22. $40 Headboard Idea

Made with pine boards, wood screws, sandpaper, glue, and a polyurethane finish, this is the least expensive headboard you could make without scarifying quality.

You could even use medium density fiberboard instead of wood. This is a very basic headboard, though the stain and finish are what will make it stand out. This builder used a beautiful cherry red color that made the grain of the wood stand out.

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23. Hidden Storage Headboard Plan

Perfect for college students or those short on space, this headboard is essentially a hollow box that contains drawers and storage space. It even includes pre-drilled spaces for power outlets and phone chargers.

You’ll need to measure your space and bedroom space exactly, using this builder’s blueprints as a rough guide. You can also get creative with painting or staining this.

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What’s Reddit Saying?

We built a rustic headboard for Less Than $100 from DIY

Over in the do-it-yourself community, one person posted about how they built a rustic headboard that cost less than $100.

They linked to an Imgur gallery that displayed the finished product. Indeed, it is a handsome, distressed wood with a pair of antique-looking lamps attached to it.

The builder explains that they were inspired by a Pinterest post, saying that in total they spent $87 buying the wood, the brushes, the stain and some electrical wiring components.

They purchased the wood from Home Depot, beat it up with a hammer and a glass scoring tool and then coated it with a Minwax dark walnut stain.

Most people were impressed, though one person said that the lamps look cheap. They recommended looking through Etsy, eBay or AliExpress to purchase something that looks more antique.

Another person says that they recognize the lamps immediately- they thought they had seen them in Home Depot or Lowe’s price under $10 .

Another commenter wondered whether they had considered constructing a matching footboard from a popular pdf- particularly one designed for a metal bed frame.

DIY headboard from woodworking

Over in the Woodworking community, another user posted an image of a completed DIY headboard. He explained that in terms of attaching it to the frame, he drilled out holes and then bolted it on.

[Seeking advice] First DIY headboard from DIY

Another hobbyist posted in the DIY Community, saying that he wanted to build a headboard for a king-size bed. The project was a little bit outside his skill level, so he was soliciting advice about how to do it the right way.

A poster responded by saying that if you’re looking to build a bookshelf headboard, its stability will heavily depend on the type and quality of materials that are used in its construction.

He advises- use adequately thick wood and that will help to ensure it’s stable, even if the design is lacking in structural integrity.

He also says that you should consider buying because at the end of the day building one is going to be probably as expensive or even more expensive than just purchasing one.

The reason why you should build it is if you need specifically custom dimensions or functionalities that you can find on the market.

Another poster says that they had built a simple queen size wood headboard using softwoods.

It cost him $150 and at the end of the day, he realizes he could have bought one for the same price and finished it on his own.

Another important tip – the builder says you should construct it so that it can be disassembled later if you need to move from your home or apartment.

My finished bedroom, DIY headboard and bench. from malelivingspace

Over in the male living space area of Reddit, a user posted a gorgeous photo of his bedroom design.

It includes a DIY headboard and a matching bench that sits at the foot of the bed. For the bench, he says that he used floor flanges.

For the wood, he bought cheap wood from a local hardware store come on sander the edges to make them look at regular and then beat them with a hammer and a chain to distress them as much as possible.

That’s an added a compliment, he embellished his living space with some Moon prints from NASA’s website that he printed out at Kinkos.

DIY Queen size headboard from HomeImprovement

Another user posted a step-by-step, PDF tutorial for a DIY queen headboard. He used a random orbital sander with 220 grit sandpaper and then added a layer of stain my phone creating a distressed wood headboard that complements the mint green paint of the bedroom he placed it in.

One builder said that usually, you can figure out a way to do the attachments without having to put holes into the face of the piece, in this case by doing the board screwing from the back end.

Another person says that they had in the past tried to do this with a king-size bed and wood that was purchased from Home Depot from its utility shelf wood section. But had a great deal of trouble getting in to hold a stain.

At the end of the day, he employed and exterior oil-based solid stain for a coat.

The original poster responded and said that in his case he employed Pine that was purchased from a hardware store.

He says that the wood was designed to be painted and stained, though he used a combination of stain and poly.

Headboard Project – How to make a $1700 headboard for about $100 from DIY

An experienced craftsman took on the task of building a teak headboard that his wife saw in an inexpensive home and garden nagazine.

He says that the store-bought option cost $1,700 and he was looking to build it for under $100.

He purchased birch plywood, Pine boards and some crown molding, built some 4 x 4 legs and used brown primer, brown paint, black paint and heavy dry brushed red paint to achieve a similar look to the magazine’s option.

One person said that it was so expensive because it’s built from teak, but if you use cheaper would you can get the same design at a much lower cost.

That’s our list- comment below with your own finished plans!