Last month, before I debuted our Master Bedroom, I showed you how I retrofitted my Craigslist headboard to be the frame I wanted.

I’m back to walk you through the rest of the tufting but I think we’re going to have to do this in two parts; construction & soft goods. The actual tufting is going to have to be a whole separate post to itself. So, lets start with the construction.

After making a bunch of sawdust, the headboard frame looked like this.

Now I needed to create an inset panel that would be the foundation for the tufting. That inset panel would get tufted and then slip into the frame. The frame & panel would get screwed together and we’d be good to go.

The Making of an Inset Panel

To keep things relatively light, I decided to use pegboard & 1×2’s to make my inset panel. The pegboard comes with a handy 1×1″ grid of holes, which I thought would keep my buttons lined up nicely.

First, I laid the headboard frame down on the pegboard and traced the shape of my inset panel.

Then I roughly cut it out & laid out where the buttons would go with some chalk.

Then, with a jigsaw, I cut out the rest of the pegboard. When you do this, be sure to cut on the INSIDE of the line. You want the inset panel to be slightly smaller than your frame. There needs to be room for the batting & fabric to wrap around the edges.

Obviously the pegboard itself is too flimsy & bendy {technical term} to support all this tufting, so we must make a frame.

To do this, attach 1×2’s around all the edges. With the 3 straight edges, this is relatively straight forward.

Attach the 1×2’s to the outermost edges. Where the frame curves in, cut along the pegboard with a jig saw. Like so –

The final support structure –

Because I marked where the tufts should be on the front side of the panel, I needed to transfer those marks onto the backside of the panel.

It would probably have just been easier to mark the tufts on the back side from the beginning. Live & learn.

My easy-peasy solution was to tape screws into each hole. Then flip the panel over and mark the holes where the screws pop through with a sharpie.

Before we move on to soft goods, pre-drill the holes for attaching the inset panel to your frame. It’s easier to do this now, rather than after the panel is covered with foam, batting, & fabric.

FINALLY! The foundation for my tufting was done. Lets move on to the foam foundation.

Lay the panel on the foam and trace. I used 3″ foam but I think 2″ would have been just fine and cheaper too.

Cut it out. An electric breadknife would really be the best tool to use to cut the foam.}

It required a little piece together but it’ll all be covered in batting, so no one will ever know.

Once your large piece of foam is cut out, mark where the buttons will go with a sharpie. Now grab your closet rod. Yup. Closet Rod.

I chose one that was just as big as my button. With a twisting motion, drill out holes for each button.

Once you’ve got all the holes punched out, adhere the foam to the panel (although, the batting will hold everything in place).

Cover in batting and staple that to your 1×2 frame.

Now go take a nap. Part 3 is where the fun begins.