Plank Headboard

I mentioned previously that I'm working with Duluth Trading Company - they gave me a Kick In The Pants to get whatever project(s) that I needed to finish.  Two plans that I revealed were for a plank headboard & a dining table and I finally finished the headboard!  Several things came up since I originally planned these, including a sprained ankle, school work, & a lot of family stuff, but I was finally get it completed! (I have all the supplies for the dining table & it will still be done, but at a later time).

I previously shared when I bought my supplies for the headboard & dining table.

First, I measured my California King bed & added an extra inch or two, so I figured 72 inches would be perfect.  And 72 inches also comes out to be 6 feet exactly.  ;)

Here's my supplies list:

4 1x6's at 12 feet (cut down to 6 feet)

2 1x4's (but I ended up not using these after all once I bought my Kreg Jig)

Kreg Jig

1 1/4" Kreg screws

Random orbital sander & sanding pads

Stain (I used Minwax Dark Walnut)

Pre-stain Wood Conditioner (I used Minwax)

Wax or Poly (optional)

French cleat (or other type of hanger - just make sure it will hold the amount of weight that you need)

The really nice man at Home Depot made the cuts for me (since my nephew's truck bed was loaded up with that big piece of fence, we weren't sure if there would be enough room without having the wood cut down) - he cut the 12 foot lengths in half, which was perfect because I needed them to be 6 feet anyways.

 

The boards already had a bit of a rough look to them and some nice knots, but I took a hammer to them to rough them up a bit more.  I, then, sanded the boards down.  It took me awhile because I used my little Porter Cable multi-tool (I forgot that I had a random orbital sander that my dad gave to me years ago), but it got the job done, even though my hand felt like "The Claw" afterwards.

After cleaning the sawdust from the boards, I applied the pre-stain wood conditioner to all the boards (to help even out the stain).

I gave it 2 coats of stain & followed the drying times on the can.

After the 2nd coat had dried completely (I gave it an extra day), I decided to try out Minwax's Paste Finishing Wax.  And this is where it went downhill.  For some reason, the wax didn't take too well in the rougher spots on the boards, leaving a white-ish residue as you can see in the 2 pictures below.

All of the boards turned out like this, so I sanded them down again.  At this point, I remembered about the random orbital sander my dad gave to me, so I made a trip to Home Depot for sanding pads for it.  Yay me, for remembering!  The orbital sander made the sanding job go way, way faster.  

So, after sanding them all down again, I put another coat of stain, but I wasn't diggin' it.  They were a bit darker than I wanted & also, in the lighter spots, they were looking red-ish (like in the below picture, which was actually after the 1st coat).

I was starting to get a bit frustrated, but decided that I actually liked the coloring after I sanded the wax off of them (the top 2 boards in the picture below).

So, after that 3rd coat of stain had dried completely, I sanded them all down again, but using a finer grit so that it lightly took away some of the darkness and redness.  They came out perfectly!  You can see the difference in the 2 boards below - I was much happier with the one on the right.

I mentioned above that I ended up buying a Kreg Jig - I decided that I wanted the headboard to sit flush against the wall and wanted to hang it with a french cleat, so I figured the best way to attach the boards together, would be with the pocket holes.

Drilling the pocket holes & figuring out where I wanted them was a lot of trial & error, but I figured it out and the boards were holding nicely together.  I did have a bit of a problem with some of the screws coming out the front of the boards, but I worked slowly and caught any errors before the wood split too badly in the front.  And since my boards have a rustic look, no one will notice where my errors were.  ;)

After I figured out where center on the wall was (compared to the width of my bed), I used my stud finder and marked where the studs were.  It turns out that one of the studs was centered with my bed, so I held up the french cleat & lined up it's center hole with the center of my bed & then marked with pencil the other holes I wanted to use - I was only going to be able to drill into one stud, so I ended up using anchors for the rest.  The french cleat I bought came with a level attached and I thought that was a great feature.

The other nice thing about the french cleat is that it didn't have to be perfectly centered, but it ended up being pretty darn close!

After getting the one side of the french cleat on the wall, I attached the other side to the back of the headboard and just centered it.  

Since I was working by myself and determined to get this DONE, I somehow managed to get that headboard inside the house from the garage and onto my bed.  I guess it was all of the adrenaline.  :) 

My bed is super heavy to move, so fortunately, I only needed to shift the mattress a bit, and was able to set the headboard onto the box springs and lean it against the wall - this really helped when I was attempting to get it on the wall by myself (in case it fell, it didn't have very far to fall).

And magically, I was able to hang it up without damaging any body parts! 

It's not perfect, but its not meant to be - I just love the rustic look!  It's been done & installed for a few weeks now & I'm loving it.  I have a couple of other things planned for the room, so I'll be sharing more of the mini-makeover soon. 

P.S.  I suggest that if you are staining in an area where you also do your laundry, to make sure the fumes have cleared out PRIOR to doing your laundry.  My workshop is in my garage, which is also where my washer & dryer are.  I did my laundry after staining the wood and the fumes were pulled into the dryer causing all of my clothes to smell like campfire smoke!  Before I figured that it out, though, I thought my dryer had broken and promptly called the warranty company to schedule a date to have it serviced.  After I called them, I ended up searching on the internet and figured out that the smokey smell on my clothes was due to the stain fumes!  I'm so glad I figured it out before they came out or else it would have ended up costing me a nice chunk of change just to have them tell me that there was nothing wrong with my dryer.  

This post is sponsored by Duluth Trading Company and I was compensated for this post.  All opinions are strictly mine.

Originally posted by Adventures in DIY

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