DIY: Upholster Your Box Spring
I saw the idea of upholstering our box spring about a year ago on Pinterest. I pinned it, then about 6 months ago I finally purchased fabric to do it. The way our bed frame is, you can see about 5″ of the box spring. Of course, ours was that typical beige mattress fabric that just wasn’t very nice to look at. As soon as I saw the idea of upholstering your box spring, I knew this was a project I wanted to do. It was pretty easy and although it looks like a lot of work, it really isn’t. It would be a perfect Saturday afternoon project. We did over the course of a few days when I could do it during nap time.
As you can tell, we really work hard to make our home magazine ready (if that magazine was titled “Real Homes Without Staging” That’s our fire safe front & center!)
What You’ll Need:
- 2 yards home decor weight fabric (I used Lulu Twill Stripe in Storm/Yellow – you can get it here.)
- sewing machine
- staple gun + staples
- fabric glue (see below)
Steps:
1. Figure out how tall your box spring is and add 2″ to that to account for wrapping it over the top and bottom. My box spring is 8″ tall, so I cut my fabric 10″ tall.
2. Do the math to figure out how long your finished piece of fabric will be. This is determined by your box spring size, if your fabric pattern is non-directional or directional, and how wide your fabric is. We have queen, which is 60″ x 80″. My fabric was 56″ wide. I gave myself an allowance for the rounded corners, as well as an overlap from where I start and finish wrapping. In total I wanted my finished piece to be a minimum of 300″ inches long. I cut 6 pieces that were 10″ tall by 56″ wide, which gave me the minimum length with over two feet of extra fabric to be safe. I used a stripe, so I had to cut my fabric from selvage to selvage but if you have a non-directional pattern (like a polka dot), you could make it easier by cutting your piece the length of your fabric so there’s less seams and pieces.
Standard Box Spring Sizes:
Twin: 39″ x 75″
Double (Full): 54″ x 75″
Queen: 60″ x 80″
King: 76″ x 80′
California King: 72″ x 84″
3. Cut out your pieces accordingly.
4. Sew your pieces together end to end to create one long piece of fabric the height of your box spring. I had a stripe that was wide, so when I joined my piece I also lined them up so where the pieces were joined, the pattern was not interrupted. I lost about 4″ per seam to ensure the pattern lined up, so if you need to do this with your fabric, make sure to account for it when cutting your pieces.
5. Once your pieces are sewn together, get that staple gun! If your box spring has a wooden frame on both sides, then you can staple your fabric down on both sides. Mine was a wooden frame on one side and then just a wire frame on the other. I stapled the fabric to the wooden side, making sure my pattern was straight.
6. If you have a wire frame like me, then use that fabric glue to glue down the other side of your fabric – make sure to pull that fabric nice and tight! No slack around here. If you use glue you should let the whole box spring dry for at least an hour before you put your bed back together.
7. Put your bed together, make the bed, then admire your handiwork.
