Bedrooms: Creative, affordable alternatives to headboards
Celebrate vintage or fabulous fabrics by installing new upholstery to a new or old padded headboard. Preziosa collection, Rebel Knit wallpaper, inspired by the organic geometry of this 1970s luxury hotelier upholstery; €165, The Curious Department.
If you're a believer in the fascinating area of feng shui, a solid, unbroken headboard is the protective “mountain at your back” when you’re in bed. Having just completed multiple bedroom renovations, whatever your attitude to metaphysics and design, no bedroom is truly and completely coronated without a headboard.
I’m always startled at just how pricey bog-standard, factory-made boards are to crown already screamingly expensive queens and kings if they are not integrated as part of the frame. Here are some of the ideas we threw around to get ahead of the expected standard.
My favourite headboard alternative this autumn/winter has to be the various revelations in deliciously yielding cushion headboards, which come in two highly pocket-friendly alternatives that can be crafted from start to finish if you’re a clever little soul.
The first is a loose, weighty buttoned wedge cushion in a triangular profile, which you simply drop into position for a punch of colour, chic and blessed lumbar support.
Add it to a bed with a head-bruising timber headboard or use it to soften up a bohemian choice like a rug hung behind the bed taken right down to the mattress top.
Leave it in place or fling it off at sleepy time. Ideal for renters, you can toss it in the van and take off with it when you move.
The other cushy choice comprises one or two (depending on your bed size) large, flat or box-edge bolster cushions with hearty tabs at the top. These are hung on a supporting horizontal rail screwed to the wall or can be Velcroed to the wall.
Rugged timber rails are trending as they inject a little organic loveliness against the upholstery. Both options come in washable covers, offering the chance to change out your display according to the season.
Wall-hanging box-edged cushions trump thick bolster types, as it doesn’t push you down the bed by as much as 30cm, vital if you live with a 6ft 5in Viking as I do. Best buy: Headboard cushions by French maker Redoute in a choice of colours, 50cm x 70cm, €30, lardoute.com; wedge pillow, €99 (washable and hypoallergenic) the pillowhome.com.
Headboards can and do appear at auction but what is often missed is old decorative and lovely old architectural things you can use to magic up something unique. Starting with the whip-lash curves of a chiffonier top, writhing in carved cabbage roses and lions’ heads that can be vandalised (presuming the base is going elsewhere).
These larger pieces of brown furnishings are on the down-low right now, rarely fetching their intrinsic value in gorgeous, tropical woods that we cannot source in these environmentally sensitive times. Most antique bed frames are smaller than our master bedroom equivalents.
Where you do find the width in a full bed, it’s worth considering altering or getting rid of the side rails to lengthen it out. Not a starter carpenter adventure. Attach the headboard and footboard to a modern, appropriate divan or platform base with standard slatted supports over screw attachments (or screw it to the wall if it’s very heavy).
Other salvaged stuff includes screens (Moorish spindle screens often flatten out to 5ft-6ft, ideal for a bed), timber window shutters, or a couple of old panelled doors.
Leave both of these final picks “in the paint” with their original finish and think twice before splashing out a rude makeover with chalk paint on any lovely old figuring.
Find your local upcoming and national auctions for the winter season and a list of salvage firms at collectireland.com. Fancy a go at gilding that lily? Imitation gold leaf ranges from €7.95 a 25-sheet book, store.evansartsupplies.ie
Whether you have a fabulous swan bed frame in a lush velvet or a simple bamboo trellis, any headboard will benefit from being set in a wider decorative scheme. Everything from textile wall hangings to prints, paintings, shallow sculptures and free-hand artwork like stencils can be used to celebrate the wall behind your bed. Draw the eye up with pieces set directly over the bed’s width and create separate relationships with framed pieces stacked over the bedside tables. One massive picture could be all you need.
I’m going to share my favourite cheap picture hack here, and it’s something I learned to do as a penniless student in Dublin. I buy up stretched canvases without frames or glazing (only with prints, not original artwork) and put a priming coat of yellow ochre over them in acrylic before using them for my own quirky artwork.
It’s one way I refocus and relax. I am not an artist of any skill or standing, but it’s something to consider for wall-fillers, even including one piece of your own using stencils. Stencilling can also be taken directly to the wall to deliver everything from a silver-birch forest to bespoke wallpaper. Try Ideal Stencils from €5.95, idealstencils.co.uk. Hanging anything of any weight over a bed, ensure you keep it well over head height sitting up in bed, and use the right fixings for the substrate type. The dangers are real.
The used furniture market can throw up some unexpected and often quality choices. For pre-loved or vintage headboards with good lines and say an exposed timber edge, weight up the cost of upholstering, and possibly tufting with new fabrics and fire-retardant fillings. Without doing anything more than steam-cleaning what lies beneath, super-sized slip-covers in heavy fabrics that tie on in loose bows or fit tightly with Velcro fittings offer you all the choices a haberdashery can offer in the latest materials or vintage finds from your latest roam of European market stalls. Etsy offers linen examples with versatile depths starting around €150 for a queen size.
Always ensure you pad any outwardly upholstered board sufficiently as they can otherwise provide a sharp crack to the occipital bone, especially for unwitting visitors.
The pallet bed was a trope for sleeping rough, but there are hundreds of sustainable, rustic designs online for making up both elaborate storage headboards and entire beds in salvaged wood at a time when timber prices are through the roof. Most require only rudimentary skills to tear down, reassemble palette components and stain them up. Choose level, even, undamaged palettes without stains or odours for your project, free of coatings like methyl bromide (indicated in blue paint or an MB).
Only expect four to six years out of intact softwood pallets used as bases. Pallets may have carried any number of chemicals-rich materials but can be cleaned off with a cup of vinegar in a 10l bucket or warm soapy water. Rinse with clean water and allow to dry under-cover.
Sand out any splinters with extreme care, and deal with any jutting nails or staples. Prices range from €2 a piece (used). Cheap cheat? The new rave for ribbed, acoustic panels can deliver an indicated headboard in delicious shades of patinated timber while dulling noise through partitioned walls; 2.4m x 600cm, €99, woodies.ie.
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