Creating a Faux Canopy Bed Headboard
My bedroom is, as it should be, a sanctuary. And I have it slowly moving towards a more thematic room as a Hufflepuff/Harry Potter room. I have floating bookshelves holding the books, a Fawkes guarding the illustrated books, and a Niffler keeping watch over some of my HP legos! But what my bed was missing was a headboard, so when I perused Pinterest for ideas on DIY headboards, I was planning on building one out of wood, but I saw a drapery one that caught my eye and I decided to try that route. The kicker - I spent $28 to create this headboard/canopy!
My wall, although textured with blue paint, was pretty boring. I didn’t even bother to make my bed fully when taking this “before” picture! I used to have a couple of photos hanging above, but I wanted something more.
I had no headboard what-so-ever and was wanting something to dress it up a bit, but still say “sophisticated” Hogwarts! Unfortunately, I had injured my elbow a few weeks prior and was missing doing some projects, but yay for me, the elbow was on my non-dominant hand and THIS project only required some drill work which I could easily do with my other hand! So I gathered my tools and set to work!
I bought two curtain rods ($10 each) which came with their own hardware. I decided I wanted the first part of my canopy to start away from the wall 18” below the ceiling, so I marked that and then measured 16” out from the wall/ceiling edge on my ceiling to attach the slings for the upper curtain rod. I had leftover blue leather from my door project for my pop-up camper, so I used those to create the slings. At first I was going to have hooks in the ceiling and hang these straps from them by attaching D-rings to them, but ultimately decided to go the easy route and screw the leather directly into the ceiling. I punched holes in the straps and screwed in anchors to the ceiling to give the screws something to hold on to. If I was to change anything about it now, I would have made my loops smaller as the “flexibility” of the sling makes the rod pull back to the wall because of the weight of the fabric.
Speaking of fabric, let me tell you about this fabric! I found it at Goodwill. It is a heavy-duty King duvet and a lovely gold/blue/silver color. I fell in love. One side was simple, the other was ornate, and since both sides would be seen on this canopy, it was perfect. And the colors said Hufflepuff AND Ravenclaw (of which I am about a 50/50 split). I loved it. I wanted it. It had no price…. So I asked the guy about getting it priced and warned him that there were pins in the edges on the inside (I had found them as I searched the edges looking for a tag). He took it to the back and then came with the news that they couldn’t sell it to me because of the pins. I was so sad!!! :( I told him I’d probably end up cutting it up anyway (at the time I didn’t know how big it was and thought I was going to have to piece it together to be long/wide enough). Eventually, he got a crew back in the office and they turned the duvet inside out and removed all the pins before handing it to me…with the price tag of $7.99. WHAT???? $8 for a duvet???? SOLD!!!!!
I got the fabric home, hung the rods and then pulled the duvet up and over the two rods, leaving about 12” hanging from the ceiling and still 4” smashed between my mattress and the wall. The picture I saw as inspiration had sewed a sleeve for the celing rod to go through, but this fabric was so heavy, I was sure it wasn’t going to go anywhere. I haven’t decided yet if I want to add lights to it or not.
It hangs like a tapestry. It makes the room feel luxurious. It’s. Perfect.
