With the tightening of the economic belt, I find that I am forced to get really creative with stuff I have just sitting around the house.

You too? 

As you know, I have been recycling some cabinet doors from the kitchen we had before the remodel of 2005.  With those old doors, my first project was to turn two of them into memo boards – those turned out really well. The second attempt was to make wall art. That project resulted in mixed reviews, most of the negativity coming from me.

Project number three was to turn the six doors I had left into a headboard.  I’ve made a fabric covered headboard before that I really love – that headboard sits in my master bedroom.  This one, on the other hand, was a lot trickier.  It’s really easy to make a fabric covered headboard with a solid piece of plywood.  It’s another thing to attempt it with a patterned fabric and six different pieces of wood. 

Here are the leftover cabinet doors before I attacked them with my staple gun:

And here is my headboard from those same doors:

We built a small “granny unit” or guest house above our garage when we added on to our house in 2005.  Currently, Mom and Pop are staying with us while their fancy shmancy house is staged and on the market.  [Should I show you pictures of their Wine Country chateau on a lake, surrounded by vineyard ?  It’s drop dead gorgeous.]

But in our guest house, there was this blank wall.  And blank walls drive me crazy.  So I decided to make a temporary headboard for that blank wall.  

Step One:  I removed all the hinges and leftover hardware. 

Step Two:  I aligned my batting and fabric on each piece, then stapled it to each individual cabinet door.  This was the hardest part of the whole project – trying to get all that fabric to match up. 

Step Three:  I labeled each door with its position on the wall.

Step Four: I located the wall studs, then matched up my D ring hanging brackets with the wall studs. 

Step Five:   I used a level to make sure the headboard’s pieces all hung straight. 

Step Six:  I also added some ribbon detail with a hot glue gun.  I’m like a decorating McGyver with a hot glue gun and a staple gun.  I can decorate just about anything with those two tools in my hands.  I know some of you share that same talent.

Don’t forget the nail head trim !  You know I have a thing for upholstery tacks. 

So here it sits, above the bed in the guest house, my headboard made out of old cabinet doors.  I think when the folks eventually move out, once their house is sold, I’ll create something else for that space.  But for now, this was a fun solution for a very blank wall.   

It’s a bit unconventional, but I think those doors are much happier covered in fabric, and not sitting in some junk yard.   

Exceptionally beautiful blown glass can stop me in my tracks.  I have been a fan of it ever since observing the Venetians do it best many years ago.  I lack the funds to be a serious collector, and it makes no practical sense now since I have small children.  But collecting some amazing pieces is on my Life’s To Do list. 

I do happen to own just a few pretty things, but they are displayed out of reach of little hands:

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