DIY Bed Slipcover | One Room Challenge Fall Week Two

I’m so grateful to all my sponsors for the One Room Challenge. The art print featured in this post was provided to me by Minted. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

 

It’s week two of the One Room Challenge and my bedroom is looking a little ridiculous. Why? Because our bed is literally in the middle of the room! BUT I’m excited to say that it’s been given a nice little makeover with some new fabric and it’s looking good. 

Let me back up a little bit. Our bed is the (discontinued) Floro model from Ikea. When we bought it, it would have looked a little something like this:

But, after 7 or 8 years the cover has been “retired” and we’re left with the not-so-attractive padding:

Yeah. Not awesome. 

Instead of buying a new custom cover for about $300 (I don’t love our bed enough to spend that kind of cash) I decided to make my own.

This project cost $85 for the fabric + shipping, in total I used 8 yards for our queen size bed. The fabric is called Ramtex Zuma Slubbed Linen Blend Charcoal. It’s a polyester/linen blend that has a pretty nice feel. It was easy to work with and appears to be durable (time will tell). 

Originally I had planned to take apart the old Ikea slipcover and use it as a pattern to sew a new slipcover, but in the end I decided against it for 2 reasons: 1) The skirted part of the slipcover is a magnet for cat fur and really annoying to keep clean 2) The Ikea slipcover was held in place by like, a gazillion yards of velcro (super annoying) and 3) it would have been WAY too much sewing. Okay, that was three reasons. So, this makeover ended up being mostly  upholstering and only a little sewing.

First, I started by laying out my new fabric and cutting a length about 7″ longer than the side panel of the bed. I then cut two 10″ strips from that piece to (one for each side of the bed) and the off-cut was put aside and used late for part of the footboard. 

Before I starting stapling the fabric to the frame, I carefully loosened the footboard and one leg and trapped the fabric in place before tightening everything up again. This gave me a little bit of starting tension and also makes the corners look clean. I did this throughout the project each time I started and ended at a corner. 

Then, using my little air compressor and nail gun I stapled the fabric in place alternating from top and bottom working my way to the other end of the bed. 

Once both sides of the bed were covered, I moved on to the footboard. This is the only sewing that I did because the footboard is visible from both sides and honestly, I had no idea how to staple the fabric and make it look good.

To make my little slipcover, I took apart the footboard of the old ikea cover and traced the pieces onto my new fabric.

The piece with the notched corners is the inside of the footboard and with the corners sewn together it creates a nice, tailored look. Once I was sure it fit, I sewed on the other side.

Once my little footboard slipcover was on I stapled it in place under the bed. The last step was to wrap the headboard with my remaining fabric and staple it to the back. Because our bed goes right up against the wall, I didn’t make an effort to make the back look great. I just focused on keeping the fabric pulled tight, and making the corners look good.

Here’s what our bed looks like now!

The whole process took about 5 hours, and I’m really happy with the result. Even though we store stuff under out bed, I like the look of the sides without the skirt. I’m also super proud of my little tailored footboard.

The grey is also a welcome change from the old beige colour we had before and it looks really nice with our existing wall colour.

The best part is how great it looks with our new art print from Minted which is going to hang on the wall above the bed.

The print is called Mesmerize and is by Canadian artist Melanie Severin.  I love all the colours and how perfect they look with our teal walls and now new grey bed.  But, it’s not going on the wall quite yet – and the bed is staying in the middle of the room for one more week! Make sure to check out my Instagram stories this weekend to see what I’m up to! 

Thanks so much for visiting – make sure to check out all the other guest participants taking part in the One Room Challenge over on Calling it Home!

 

This post contains affiliate links, you can find my full disclosure statement here.