They’re up! I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to be able to say that, and don’t they look good? If you couldn’t already tell I’m pretty chuffed with our handy work here, and the bedroom now feels super lux!
If you read my last bedroom blog post you’ll know how I came to decide on adding panels to this room, so in this post I’m sharing all the details and sources on how we made them.
CHOOSING THE FABRIC
This required a few trips to get samples in order to find the right one. I knew I wanted it to be velvet and I wanted it to match the wall colour, but even if you don’t know exactly what you want I’d recommend following these steps:
- Bring a card with your wall colours/paint on it (the bigger the better), and while you’re at it bring along anything else you’re planning on using in the room (pillow case, cushion etc). That way you can put them alongside any material you find to get a sense if it’ll work or not.
- Buy a sample. The minimum you can get is usually 10cm, pay the money and get at least this size. Take it home and stick it up on the wall and live with it for a day or two.
- When purchasing your fabric don’t forget to buy a little over what you need so that you have enough excess to staple it to the back of the board.
I decided to go with this fabric in Pink Diamond from Spotlight. It isn’t the exact same colour as the walls of our bedroom but its close enough and the texture of this fabric helps disguise that fact.
MATERIALS
Getting the fabric is one thing but there is a whole lot of other things you’ll need for this project.
- The board – For this we used this MDF panel from Bunnings. The great thing about Bunnings is they have a free cutting service in store, so we were able to get it cut to the exact size we needed, which was 700mm x 1600mm.
- Staple gun and staples – You may already own these items but I did not, I picked this one up from Spotlight, but Bunnings also sell similar ones. What I will recommend though is buying an extra box of staples. I did not and it was frustrating to have to go out to buy more.
- Foam – I picked mine up from Clark Rubber and went for the 12mm thickness, but this is entirely a personal choice and will depend on what you want the finished piece to look like. As with the material, make sure to buy extra so that you’ve enough to be able to staple it to the back of the board.
- Battens – Again we got these from Bunnings and bought standard planks measuring 90 x 12mm.
- Jigsaw – this is the one we used to cut out the corners and the battens.
You’ll also need sandpaper/sander, screws wall plugs and wood glue/nails.
CONSTRUCTION
1. First up find something round to mark out the corners.
TIP: The smaller the circle the less of a curve you’ll get. I didn’t want too big of a curve so went with a side plate measuring 210mm in diameter.
2. Using your jigsaw cut out each of the corners and give them a sand to smooth out any rough edges.
3. Time to make the split battens. Darren cut the wood down into 500mm lengths, and we used 3 battens per panel.
4. Setting the jigsaw blade to 45 degrees Darren cut each batten down the middle. One side to go on the back of the board and the corresponding one to go on the wall.
5. This is where we should’ve mounted the battens by nailing them onto the board, but we jumped ahead and upholstered them first. But I’d recommend that you do it this way round.
6. Label each section 1,2,3,4 and do the same with the wall batten bits; top 1, middle 1, bottom 1 etc.
7. Next, lay out the foam, plop the board on top and cut it to size allowing a little extra around the edges to be able to fold it back.
8. Then pull the foam back over the edges and staple into place.
9. Now for the fun bit, adding the material!! Like with the foam, lay out your fabric with the board on top and cut it to the size you need.
10. This time pull the fabric as tight as you can and staple into place. With the corners do one section, then fold the material over that section and staple again. I made plenty of errors and had to re-staple bits, so don’t get too hung up on getting it 100% right the first time.
11. Now it’s time to mount them!! Decide on the height you want, drill the holes and screw the other part of the split batten to the wall.
12. Now simply hang the panel on top and you’re good to go! And by using split battens you can easily adjust and slide your panels across as you need to.
If you do decide to give this project a go, I’d love to hear how you get on and see any pictures of your handy work, but for now here is one last shot of our finished panels.
