These days I have a long furniture wish list for our house. When we moved to Richmond from our tiny house in Old Town Alexandria, we hardly had any furniture worth moving, and several pieces actually ended up at the dump. It’s been a slow process furnishing the rooms in our home, and when it came to Violet’s and Nathan’s rooms, I needed to get creative. I decided to use a trick that I saw Sarah Richardson use to create “faux” beds and attached furniture feet to the box springs.
Both of the box springs look like pieces of furniture and only cost around $50 for the fabric and feet. Nathan’s bed obviously still needs the pillow treatment, but I’m really happy with how they turned out. I used feet similar to these from Home Depot and sanded, primed and painted them.
If you want to try this trick at home, here’s how I created my faux furniture:
- Start with a long strip of fabric that will fit around the box spring (you will probably have to sew 2 or 3 pieces of fabric together to get the right length). To determine the width of the strip of fabric, add 7-8 inches to the depth of the mattress. Finish the top and bottom edges with a zig zag stitch to prevent unraveling. Wrap the fabric around the box spring to determine the exact length and pin to mark where you’ll sew the two ends together.
- After you’ve sewn the two ends together, stretch the fabric over the box spring leaving 4 inches to fold over the top of the box spring. Stitch the fabric to the top of the box spring to hold it in place (you’ll need to mitre the fabric at the corners).
- Flip the box spring over and prepare to attach the fabric to the bottom side. In my case, I wanted to make sure the stripes were level, and then I pinned it into place.
- Staple the fabric to the bottom of the box spring, pulling it taut as you go.
- Trim the box spring padding to create a space to screw in the furniture foot. I attached 3 feet on each long side of the beds (6 total).
- Drill a hole that is slightly smaller than the width of the screw on the furniture foot.
- Cover the hole with the fabric, and use a pin to mark where the hole is.
- Cut a hole in the fabric for the screw to go through, and
- Screw in the foot.
- Repeat for the remaining 5 feet.
Tip: If any of the feet are wobbly, remove the foot, squirt some wood glue into the hole and reattach the foot.
I wanted Violet’s bed to have a very tailored skirt, so I used a slightly different approach.
I attached the feet in the same method that I described above and then followed these steps:
- Stitch a small fabric panel on the two end corners of the bed. My panels are hemmed on 3 sides and then zig zag stitched along the tops to prevent unraveling. I stitched them to the top of the box spring and then down both sides of the panel.
- Then attach 2 long panels to either side of the bed by stitching them to the top of the box spring. These are also hemmed on 3 sides and zig zagged along the top.
- Finally, attach a third panel to the end of the bed (again, hemmed and zig zagged) to create the look of a box pleat.
Do you have any clever, budget-saving tricks when it comes to furnishing your home? Do share!
Amazing. I wouldn’t have known that you could do that to a box spring. It looks perfect. I bet if you lived in a small space, this could double as a couch and look so cute, just because of the box spring treatment.
.-= Tiffany´s last blog ..$5 Challenge Inspiration =-.
Hey Rachel (and Juliet)! It’s Melissa from Heidi Story’s skirt sewing class a few years ago. Just found your blog, and glad to see you are putting your creativity and sewing skills to use. After attempting the skirt in that class, I figure it’s cheaper to buy a skirt when taking into account the tedious work, time, and buying fabric and supplies required to make one. This project, however, Rachel, is brilliant and definitely worth the time and money and custom look– well done!
Hi Melissa! So glad you found us. We’ve been having a lot of fun (and work!) with our sewing machines. Thanks for saying hi! Hope all is well with you! Juliet
Wow! this is such a smart idea!
.-= Kate´s last blog ..And the winner is…. =-.
this is brilliant! they look gorgeous. I have been putting off putting a big boy bed in my sons room because of cost. what a great idea.
wow this is genious! do you think this will be sturdy enough to sleep on an every day basis for a couple? i want to attempt it, but im afraid the legs screwed onto the bedframe may not be stable enough…
Priscilla,
Violet has put her bed through some pretty good testing (unfortunately, she loves to jump on the bed), and her room becomes our guest room when we have company. So far so good with the feet – I say give it a try!
Rachel
This. Is. Brilliant.
That pretty much sums it up.
.-= Whitney @ Whisker Graphics´s last blog ..Gift Wrapping & Packaging Ideas =-.
Great idea and perfect timing. I am getting ready to redo our guest room on a budget and don’t have real set of furniture. I’m planning use and old door for a headboard so between that and this project, I could be all set with the bed.
.-= Angie´s last blog ..2010 Goals {1st Quarter Update} =-.
Wow! What a great project! It looks amazing and seems pretty easy to do too. I could picture a toile for the fabric too. Oh the choices!
[...] Peachy projects from our own houses, like these: fabulous foyer, DIY lamp shade, and faux furniture. [...]
That is SO SMART!!!
I love this idea! My son sleeps on the bed we also use as our guest bed for grandparents – so we can’t have it too far off the ground. This idea is perfect, plus I LOVE the bed skirt as well! Thanks for sharing!
I NEED to know where you got the striped fabric! It is exactly what I’m looking for!!!
I did this with suede cloth but the only difference is that I made it a skirt attached to the box springs. The bed was on a metal frame instead of attaching legs. I box-pleated the corners and put one pleat half way along the sides. I covered the headboard in the same suede for a custom look.
I love your idea! I Love anything that makes a bed look ‘custom made’!
Thanks for sharing!
they look great! what a good idea.
BRILLIANT!
I’ll be featuring your project tomorrow on my blog. Thank you so much for sharing it!
What a fantastic idea!! I would have never thought of that – yet it’s so perfect in its simplicity! We daughter will love this.
Thank you!
first of all, i LOVE sarah and can’t believe i missed this amazing idea through all of my stalking!
luckily, i spied it on 36th ave today! thanks so much for putting together the tutorial! love the fabrics you selected…can’t wait to see the finished rooms.
newest follower!
amy
LOVE this idea!!!! Been thinking of how to *cheaply* and easily make a bedskirt for my son’s bed and am in love with this. so doing it!!
My sis sent me this link and it is as Fab and Brilliant in 2011 as much as it was when you first wrote this post. Thanks for the inspiration! My kids beds are about to get the princess (faux) treatment thanks to you!
This is a great idea! I think I can even use the fabric from the bedskirt to do this, and it will look great! Thanks for such a clever idea!
This is SO smart! I’m going to add it to my “Project To-Do” list. CHEERS!
Found this link through Pinterest. I’m so glad I did! I am so tired of my son’s bed skirt slip sliding around and I think you’ve just given me a brainstorm for the fix I need.
@juliebavi
I am so exicted, I have the material and didn’t know who to start. This is the perfect thing! Thank you!
This is amazing!!! We too have very little furniture and I think this is the best idea!! I’m on my way to go make a f aux bed right now!!!!!
Thanks so much for publishing this!
Thank you so much. I plan to use this idea because I am moving soon and have to downsize. I don’t plan to take the couch that I have and a twin size bed will serve as a couch and I can put a skirt on it like this. Another thing is that my cat has been tearing one corner of my box spring of my bed and this treatment is a solution for covering up this problem. Thanks again.
Found a link to this on pinterest and think I will attempt to do it! One question though: how did you sew the fabric to the top of the box spring?
I just use a fitted sheet…this is cute, though!
I am a freak over bed bugs.. How would you recommend I do this project with mattress covers??
Wow, I would never have thought to do that to a box spring, but love the way they both look! As mine is pretty old, but still very sturdy, I think I’ll borrow your idea and do that to mine! Thanks a million for the inspiration! I’m pinning this for all the world to see and hopefully they’ll visit!
[...] looking into buying a headboard (or maybe getting creative and making one somehow) but when I saw this faux furniture tutorial on Urban Nest Blog I felt like I had struck gold. It looks like a manageable project for me and I [...]
Love this! I’m not sure which room to do this in but definitely putting it in my list of future DIY house projects:)