My daughter has just recently bought a house and is in the process of filling all the rooms with furniture.  She had 4 bedrooms that needed furniture but new furniture was not in the budget.

For the master bedroom, I made a barn quilt headboard which was made up of small pieces of wood cut to size, painted and glued together.  The results were absolutely stunning but it was too soon after the last one to make another one. So, my next idea was to paint a geometric design onto an old headboard I got given for free.

This was a very simple project that I completed in a day and ended up with a modern headboard that looks great in her house.

How to give a headboard a geometric makeover

Prepare your surface

This headboard was part of a four-poster bed, the owner was throwing it away and then thought of me.  I never say no to free wood.  I have been doing this for years now and I have not bought any wood from a store in years.  See how I get my materials for free.

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To start I used a handsaw and cut the posts shorter and sanded the ends smooth with an orbital sander. I rushed in as always and added a coat of white primer then realised I needed to fill in all the holes. Oops.. I used wood filler to overfill the holes to allow for shrinkage, which I have had in the past.  This way I will have a smooth surface.  Once the filler was dry it was sanded smooth with a sander.

To fill the larger holes left by the sides of the bed frame. I used a piece of plywood cut to size which was put inside the hole and filled with gap filler.

Tape your geometric design onto the headboard

Next, I added 2 coats of white chalk paint to the headboard.  I chose chalk paint because it will hide a lot of the imperfects in the wood and it dries quickly.

Using painters tape, make up your shapes.  I did not measure or have any plans on how the layout would look. The tape was added randomly in straightish lines. If a shape was too big, I added smaller shapes inside it.

Painting the headboard

Because my Daughter loved the colours in the first headboard and I had lots of paint leftover I used the same colours. I left the sides of the headboard white so it would frame the design in the middle. (and the sides were too hard to tape up) Haha. To paint the insides of the shapes I used a small 5-inch paint roller, which worked perfectly.  Do one colour at a time and let it dry before moving on, because you can get smudges from the previous colour on the roller. I used 2 different shades of grey to paint the shapes.

Once the paint is completely dry, you can remove the painter’s tape. To seal the paint and make the headboard more durable I added 2 coats of waterbased polyurethane.

And that was the makeover complete.  She now has a modern geometric headboard at a fraction of the cost of a new one.

Her spare bedroom is all ready and waiting for me to go and visit.

For more DIY headboard ideas check out this headboard I made from old kitchen cupboard doors and scrap wood.

Or if you have a headboard frame laying around why not try this headboard I made from old kitchen cupboard doors

Interested in more great ideas for future project pop over to DIY Ideas Centre, because they have something for everyone.

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