A headboard and foot board can do more than grace each end of a bed. They create terrific benches, when you take them apart and reconnect them nearer together, and repaint them. A headboard-foot board seat may be a quirky addition to your front entry, a reading nook in the nursery or a spot to sit for a spell in the garden. Don’t lug that old bed frame to your curb; instead, reinvent it like a one time bench for your property.
Lazy Day Bench
A castoff wood headboard and foot board with turned spindles is a real find for your committed DIYer. The displaced star of this bedroom takes center stage in a shady corner of your garden after a reconfiguration and a cosmetic makeover. Determine the depth of the chair; cut the plank in half and trim it to the seat depth measurement; screw each half to a hardboard pole and include a seat made of reclaimed timber or plywood. Give the whole thing a good sanding and a base coat; then paint over that using a lighter, contrasting color — lilac, faded pink, softened verdigris or robin’s egg blue. Stencil or draw freehand vines and blossoms on the back, support posts and chairs, and paint the designs with hobby paints. Paint the spindles a rainbow of pale shades. Protect the garden fairy bench with clear matte polyurethane.
Twinboard Bench
Hunt for a carved wood twin-size four-poster with turned legs in a thrift shop or your attic. Take it apart and reassemble the headboard and foot board to your cosy bench for the kids’ room. Cut the foot-board legs so the front of the seat is kid seat-height. Save the cut-off turned legs to work with as “arms” connecting the back of the seat — the headboard — together with the front the foot plank. The foot-board crosspiece becomes the leading panel — like a kickboard — of this seat. Screw the former legs of the plank, now the seat arms, to the headboard and foot-board posts. Insert a 2-by-4 supportive frame and a plywood seat. Paint the whole seat with milk paint in a shade that works together with the decor in a child’s bedroom, then highlighting fancywork on turned posts and finials in a contrasting color.
Baby Bench
The baby is growing up, and your carefully constructed nursery furniture is now surplus. You have to furnish a child’s room without dipping into the college fund. So inspect that antique crib with budget-savvy eyes. Take the sides off and cut it down so a brief kid can scramble aboard easily. Replace a spring stage with solid wood and paint or refinish the new platform and also the old frame, headboard and foot board to your bedroom or playroom. Cover the crib bed with canvas that is tough, piped round the edges for style and reinforcement, and utilize matching or coordinated cotton canvas for pillows to pile along the back and sides of the new seat. Push the seat against a wall, position the pillows, and you have custom seating out of what would happen to be a hand-me-down or curbside discard.
Mixed Media
Craft a garden seat from an old iron bedstead and a few smooth sanded boards. The headboard becomes the back of the seat. The foot board, cut in half and soldered or bolted to the headboard end posts, becomes the arms and is trimmed to the depth of the seat until it’s attached to the back. A wood slat seat or plywood one-panel seat, twisted to your 2-by-4 support framework, is notched to fit around the posts and secured in place with screws or L-braces. Preserve signs of wear on the bed frame using sprayed-on clear matte lacquer, and distress and faux-age the seat having an undercoat of paint in a darker color than the topcoat, which should match the color of the headboard and foot board and be chipped and worn away sanded — in places, then protected using the same lacquer topcoat.