DIY Upholstered Bed Base

Our new bed is finished! I finished the upholstered bed base on Monday, and then my mom came over yesterday morning to help me get the headboard hung on the wall, get the bed base moved into place, and get our mattress moved into the bedroom. I’m so happy with how this turned out!

I don’t like the legs that I bought for the base, so I’ve ordered new legs. They’ll be here on Thursday, and I swap them out then. I thought the legs I ordered would be more of an antiqued gold because that’s what the picture on Amazon showed, but they’re actually very bright, shiny gold. I tried to use Rub ‘N Buff on one of them, but that didn’t work out. So the new ones will be turned wood legs.

So let me show you how I made this matching DIY upholstered bed base.

To build the frame, I used 3/4″ plywood and 1×3 lumber. I wanted my plywood sides to be 10 inches high, and I needed it to fit around a queen size mattress. So I ripped the plywood to 10 inches using my table saw, and then I cut two of the pieces to 62 inches long and the other two pieces to 83.5 inches long. I attached those pieces together using Spax cabinet screws. And then inside those plywood pieces, I attached the 1×3’s at the top and the bottom. I cut four of the 1×3’s to 60.5 inches long and four pieces to 82 inches long. I attached those to the plywood using 1.25-inch 16-gauge nails. These 1×3 pieces didn’t serve any structural purpose. They simply gave the bed base more thickness on the top and bottom edge, which I thought would look better once it was upholstered.

I couldn’t get the whole thing in one picture, so I made this diagram to show how the pieces fit together if you look at the whole structure from the top. The inside pieces are the 1×3’s and the outside pieces are the plywood pieces. Once it was all put together, the base had inside dimensions of 80.5″ x 60.5″.

In hindsight, I wish I would have allowed more space to have inside dimensions of 81.5″ x 60.5″ because our mattress ended up fitting pretty tightly inside the base, leaving no room to tuck the comforter inside the frame, which I would have preferred. But I’ll live with it.

Here’s another look at the frame once all of those pieces were screwed and nailed together.

Next, I wrapped high-loft batting around the whole frame, wrapping it around those inside 1×3 pieces and stapling it into place on the bottom edge of the 1×3 for the top, and on the top edge of the 1×3 for the bottom.

Here’s a look at the inside. You can see where I stapled it using my narrow crown stapler that works with my air compressor.

I started at the head of the bed (i.e., the part that won’t show once it’s tucked under the headboard) and worked my around the whole frame. Once it was all covered with batting, I went back and trimmed off the excess batting (and, of course, forgot to take a picture of that). But all of this excess batting was trimmed off before I moved on to the next step.

With the batting on, I was ready for the fabric. I cut several strips of fabric, about 20 inches high, and then sewed them together, making sure to match the patterns. I made this strip long enough to go around the entire base with about 12 inches to spare.

And then I pressed al of my seams open and flat using my steam iron. I was pretty relieved to see how great this fabric hid the seams.

I pressed the seams on the front and the back, making sure that the fabric was perfectly smooth and flat.

And then, starting at the head of the bed again, I wrapped the fabric around the whole base, making sure that the pattern was straight.

And then, starting at the head of the bed, I started stapling the fabric on just like I did the batting. I worked my way around the base clockwise and ending back at the head of the bed. As I worked my way around, I made sure that the pattern was straight, pulled the fabric taut to the right, and stapled it into place on the 1×3’s. Once I was all the way around, I trimmed off the excess fabric for a clean look.

The most difficult part was the corners, but I folded those over just like wrapping a present, making sure that I had a crisp, clean fold.

When I got back around to the head of the bed, I simply folded the fabric under about an inch, and then stapled right on top of the fabric. Again, this will be to the wall and under the headboard, so it won’t show at all.

Once all of the fabric was stapled on and the excess trimmed, this is what it looked like.

For the inside, I started by attaching a 2×4 to each of the long sides. These went right under the 1×3 that were wrapped with batting and fabric. I attached these using 2-inch wood screws, and as you can see, I used a lot of them.

Here’s what it looked like with the 2×4’s attached to both of the long sides.

And then I attached to more 2×4’s to the inside, spacing them evenly. I originally considered using my Kreg pocket hole jig to attach these, but I ended up going a different direction.

I ended up using joist hangers to attach these to inside 2×4’s. Joist hangers are made for use with 2×6’s or 2×8’s, so they were too long to fit my 2×4’s. So I just used my grinder to cut off the excess metal, and then I had to drill two more screw holes into the hangers to make them work with my 2×4’s. They were actually very easy to cut and drill screw holes into. And then that allowed me to get these to inside 2×4’s right under the perimeter 1×3’s.

And then I added four additional legs to those inside 2×4’s. These didn’t need to be pretty since they won’t show, so I used 2×2 lumber and attached them with wood screws.

The final step was to add the slats. For these, I use twelve 1×4’s. I haven’t nailed these on yet because I want to be able to remove them when the new feet arrive. It’s easier to be able to remove this weight when I need to flip the base over to attach the feet. But after the new feet are on, I’ll come back and nail these slats in place.

And that’s it! That’s the finished bed base. Well, I guess it’s almost finished since I’ll be swapping out those feet. But the hard part is done.

Here it is with the headboard hung on the wall and the base in place.

I am so excited about how this turned out. I can’t wait to get all of the bedding on!

I’ve made headboards before, and I’ve even built a bed base before, but this is my absolute favorite. I’m so proud of this project.