A headboard is the simplest substantial upholstery project in this book. No springs, no stitched edges, no concern about long-term sitter wear. It’s a flat panel with foam, Dacron and cover, mounted on a plywood backing, fixed to either the bed frame or directly to the wall. Decorative buttoning is the only optional complication. Most modern headboards take 4–6 hours of workshop time and £60–150 of materials, depending on size and fabric.
Headboards arrived as a separate furniture category in the 1950s, when divan beds — which lacked the integral wooden head of older bedsteads — needed something to lean back against in bed. The wall-mounted upholstered panel was a quick post-war solution and has remained the dominant form. Customers usually want them re-covered every 5–10 years to match changes in bedroom decor; the foam underneath rarely needs replacement more than once in a 20-year period.
Two types
Strut-fixed: the headboard has wooden struts that bolt into the divan-base frame. Wall-fixed: the headboard hangs on the wall behind the bed via brackets. The construction is the same; only the fixing method differs.
Standard sizes
Headboard width matches the bed’s internal mattress width, plus 30–50 mm of overhang on each side for a clean visual line. UK standard bed sizes:
- Single: 900 mm mattress → 950–990 mm headboard
- Double: 1370 mm → 1400–1450 mm
- King: 1530 mm → 1580–1630 mm
- Super-king: 1830 mm → 1880–1930 mm
- Emperor (custom): 2000 mm → 2050 mm
Headboard height is more variable but typically 900–1200 mm above the mattress top. We build to 1100 mm by default; the customer can specify shorter or taller. Above 1300 mm needs special wall-fixings; below 800 mm looks visually undersized.
Always confirm the customer’s actual mattress dimensions; some older or imported beds use non-standard sizes. We’ve made the wrong-size headboard once; it was an embarrassing day. Now we ask for a photograph of the customer measuring the mattress with a tape.
What you need: a typical double headboard
Materials (1400 × 1100 mm, float-buttoned, wall-fixed)
- 12 mm birch plywood sheet (paid link)
- 32 mm HD foam slab, 32–36 kg/m³ (paid link) — see the foam tool
- Upholstery spray adhesive (paid link)
- 2 m of 200 g/m² polyester wadding (Dacron) (paid link)
- ~2 m of show fabric — the panel outline plus 100 mm overhang all round; work it with the fabric calculator
- 10 mm staples (paid link)
- 8 self-cover buttons (paid link)
- Buttoning twine (paid link)
- French cleat (or 25 mm pine to make one) (paid link) and rated masonry anchors
- Bottoming cloth for the back (paid link)
Total: £60–150 depending on size and fabric. Time 4–6 hours, of which the buttoning is about an hour. If you’re making headboards to sell, the cover must meet the UK fire regulations — see standards & regulations.
Tools for the job
- Staple gun (paid link) — not tacks, see below
- Jigsaw (paid link) for the ply outline
- Long double-ended buttoning needle (paid link)
- Drill with a 4 mm bit for the button holes
The full kit is covered in the toolkit. Links above are affiliate links — they cost you nothing extra and help keep the site free.
Construction: layer by layer
Stage 1 Plywood backing
A 12 mm sheet of birch ply cut to the headboard’s outline shape. This is the structural element; everything else is attached to it. The ply also carries the wall-mounting hardware. Cut the outline with a jigsaw — rectangular for modern, gently arched at the top for traditional, fully shaped for design pieces.
Stage 2 Foam & Dacron
One slab of 32–36 kg/m³ HD foam, 32 mm thick, cut to the same outline as the ply. Glued to the ply with spray adhesive. Some headboards use a softer second layer on top (modern luxury designs); we usually find a single 32 mm slab gives the right balance of comfort and longevity.
Then one layer of 200 g/m² polyester wadding wrapped over the foam, taken around the edges to the back of the ply where it’s stapled. It smooths the foam’s edges and gives the cover a slight softness.
Stage 3 Top fabric
Cut to the headboard’s outline plus 100 mm overhang on every side. Centred on the panel; smoothed; pulled around to the back; stapled to the ply at 25 mm intervals around the entire perimeter. Corners pleated cleanly (see calico, wadding & top cover).
Headboard ply is too thin for traditional 13 mm tacks — the tack point would push through the back face. Use a staple gun (see the toolkit) with 10 mm staples; they grip the ply firmly without punching through.
Stage 4 Buttoning a headboard
Most upholstered headboards have decorative buttoning — it’s the visual feature that distinguishes them from plain padded panels. Float buttoning (see buttoning & tufting) is the appropriate technique here; deep buttoning is overkill for a headboard, where the buttons aren’t carrying any structural load.
Pattern: a regular grid of buttons, typically spaced 200–250 mm centre-to-centre. Two rows is standard for headboards 1100 mm tall; three rows for taller. Mark the grid on the foam before applying the cover; drill 4 mm holes through the ply at each button position.
Pull through. After the cover is fitted, push a long buttoning needle from the back through the ply, the foam, the Dacron and the cover. Thread the button twine through the button shank; pull the needle back; draw the twine through; tie off against a backing patch on the back of the ply. The dimples form as the twine pulls tight; aim for 8–12 mm dimple depth — less than for deep buttoning, more than for purely decorative.
Cover the buttons in the same fabric as the headboard for a seamless look (the most common request); or in a contrasting fabric for visual interest. Self-cover button kits are sold in any haberdashery; it takes about 2 minutes per button to make.
The buttoning calculator works out spacing and count for your panel size — and if you do want full diamonds instead of a float grid, the extra fabric each dimple takes.
Stage 5 Wall & strut fixings
Strut-fixed headboards have two wooden struts (450–500 mm long, 50 × 25 mm in section) screwed to the back of the plywood, hanging down behind the divan. Each strut has a 10 mm hole drilled near the bottom; bolts pass through these into the divan base. Most divans have receiving holes pre-drilled at standard spacing (310 mm centre-to-centre on a single, 720 mm on a double, and so on).
Wall-fixed headboards use a French cleat — a 45° bevelled timber strip screwed to the wall, with a matching strip on the back of the headboard. The headboard hangs on the cleat by gravity and lifts off for cleaning. We make French cleats from 25 mm pine; fix to the wall with proper masonry anchors.
Customer’s choice. Strut-fix is more visually traditional and means the headboard moves with the bed; wall-fix is more stable, more contemporary, and lets the headboard be slightly wider than the bed.
A king-size headboard weighs about 18 kg; wall-fixings need to be rated for that. Use proper M8 chemical anchors into masonry, not plastic plugs. We’ve seen wall-mounted headboards pull off their wall and damage furniture below; do the fixings properly.
From the workshop
The headboard set we make every five years
A regular customer in Hebden Bridge has a king-size headboard in her main bedroom that she’s had us re-cover every five years since 2010. The original ply backing, foam, and wall-cleats are unchanged; we replace just the fabric and the buttoning. Each re-cover takes about three hours; we charge £180 plus the new fabric (typically £80–120). Total £260–300 every five years; she gets a fresh-looking bedroom for the price of a haircut every month.
We’ve recommended this pattern to a dozen other customers since: a permanent foam-and-ply headboard with periodic fabric refresh. It works beautifully on headboards because they don’t take any structural wear; the foam is good for 20+ years; only the fabric ages.
Did you know
Why headboards exist at all
Headboards were originally structural — the head end of the bed frame had a tall wooden panel to support the back of someone sitting up in bed (which, before the 19th century, was a common place to read, write letters, or receive visitors). Beds in great houses had elaborately-carved wooden headboards; cottage beds had plain ones.
The separate upholstered headboard — the object this chapter is about — emerged in the 1950s when the divan replaced the wooden bedstead in mass-market British bedrooms. Divans have no integral head, so the headboard became an add-on item. Sixty years later, removable upholstered headboards are now the dominant form even on beds that do have integral wooden heads, because customers want the soft surface to lean against.
Common mistakes
Headboard errors that catch beginners out
- Wrong size for the bed — always confirm the customer’s actual mattress dimensions, with a photo of them measuring it; the standard sizes are guides, not guarantees.
- Tacks instead of staples — headboard ply is too thin for tacks; the points come through the back face. Staple gun, every time.
- Insufficient wall-fixings — a heavy headboard pulled off the wall is a real risk. M8 chemical anchors into masonry, or proper structural screws into stud uprights; never just plastic plugs in plasterboard.
- Buttoning too tight — float-button only; a deep-buttoned headboard looks fussy and the foam compresses around the buttons over time. 8–12 mm dimple depth is right.
- Foam grade too low — anything under 28 kg/m³ compresses where the customer leans against it. 32 kg/m³ minimum; 36 kg/m³ for premium.
Headboard built, wall-fixed, fresh fabric. The next project chapter is the major restoration in this book — the wing-back armchair. Full traditional springing, stitched-edge first stuffing, complex inside-arm and wing geometry. Twenty pages, the longest single project in Part Three.