planning out our DIY upholstered headboard

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My husband and I just bought our first king-size bed recently.  We had a full-size when we lived in our first apartment in Hawaii (talk about cramped!) and ever since, a queen has been heavenly.  But finally, after close to 5 years of marriage, we are so excited about all the new-found space!  I've been wanting to make an upholstered headboard for us because, A - DIY is fun; B - upholstered headboards are so pretty; and C - but they're dang expensive and this way will save us a ton of money.

I've been window shopping for ideas for awhile now and I've finally decided on what I want our headboard to look like.  I went back and forth over nail head trim with the Belgrave design or tufted with just a simple rectangular shape, but I finally made up my mind and I want tufting.  Diamond tufting, to be exact.  I love tufting, as long as it's not overly done.  It's just so pretty and I also want it to be in velvet upholstery fabric. 

I ordered a swatch of this fabric and I love it.  The color is a really pretty neutral and the fabric is so soft, but it would've cost us over $120 and we still need to get the rest of the supplies.  So I shopped around and found a very similar fabric in a lighter gray/off-white from Hobby Lobby, which I would link to if they had it online, but they don't.  Thanks to their amazing 40% off coupon that they always have, I got 4 1/2 yards for about $45.  My husband and I were both thrilled.

Now I've never done a tufting project before and I'm not sure exactly what most people do when it comes to the size of their buttons, but I looked at the ones they had at Hobby Lobby to get an idea and I really like the size 45 buttons (1 1/8").  Every tutorial I've read on tufting has left out the size they picked for their buttons.  It's totally personal preference, but I want my buttons to be visible, not overbearingly so, but still visible with the tufting and our tufting is going to be fairly deep.  So any thoughts/opinions/advice on this would be well received (thanks in advance!).

Here are some inspiration photos for our new headboard.

Isn't the color of that headboard just gorgeous?  It kind of reminds me of Betty Draper's headboard back in the day, which I just about drool over.

Dark blue velvet...I just love it so much.

This picture is the closest I could find to what ours will look like.  I can't wait until all of this planning becomes a reality. 

There are three tutorials I'll be using as my go-to guides for this project.  This one from the blog Thrify Decor Chick, this one from the blog Little Green Notebook, and this one from the blog Pretty Dubs.  They all have unique approaches to this that I really like, so I'll be pulling what I like from each to make it exactly how we want.  I'll post a tutorial when we're all done with everything that we did, but one thing we're doing differently from all three of these very talented ladies is that we will be adding legs to our headboard.  I don't want to deal with hanging it on the wall, so instead we'll add legs, drill holes near the bottom, and attach it to our bed frame.  Since the bed goes up against the wall, I'm not concerned about stability with it only being attached near the bottom.  I've read other tutorials where this was done, so I know it's possible.

The other day, I mapped it all out in Photoshop with the exact measurements that we want.  Since we won't be hanging ours, we can't use a peg board because they're too flimsy, so instead we'll use plywood and mark and drill our holes.

Our dimensions will be 80 inches wide by 42 inches tall.  If you like the look of this and you want to use it for your own headboard, you can download and print the PDF version here.  Be on the look out for progress photos and a tutorial on the finished project!