Uses for Old Wood Headboards

• You can easily transform a headboard into a bench-back.bedroom image by Pavel Losevsky from Fotolia.com
  
  While you may throw away an old wood headboard, an alternative is to re-purpose that headboard into a new functional or decorative item. With its two posts and wood panel suspended between them, a headboard from an old bed offers a large, flat surface, suitable for a number of types of projects. In comparison to wrought iron, steel and other metal headboards, wood headboards are much easier to work with, as you can saw through and attach their components using standard carpentry tools.
  
  

Benches

• As the do-it-yourself craft project resource website Robo Junker illustrates, an old wood headboard can make the perfect back for a bench. You can build the seat and frame of the bench from two-by-fours and other scrap lumber, then attach the headboard to its back. Because wood headboards are often bulky and heavy, for best results you should use screws -- optimally 3 inches long -- as opposed to nails for fastening your headboard to the bench frame. As added features, you can build armrests protruding outward from either end of the headboard and connect the armrests to the seat with rows of spindles. To give your bench a uniform appearance, paint the frame, seat, headboard and other features all one color. You may also want to stencil a floral pattern or other design on to the headboard to give the bench some character.
  
  

Chairs

• While double, queen and king bed-sized wood headboards often provide adequate, if not ample, space for building benches, single and children's bed-sized headboards typically do not. Fortunately, to accommodate a small headboard in a project, you can simply scale-down the design for a bench, and build yourself a wooden headboard chair. Options to consider include adding a cushioned or upholstered seat to the chair and -- as with benches -- stenciling designs on to the headboard.
  
  

Dog Bed

• According to the do-it-yourself design resource website Curbly, a wood headboard from an old bed can serve as the perfect new headboard for your dog's bed. One of the best options is to bolt the bottom posts of the headboard into wooden blocks, so that the headboard can stand freely and securely. Then you can throw a big cushion in front of it and watch your pooch snooze in style. As Curbly recommends, you may also want to consider covering the headboard with a fabric slip-cover, painting an image -- such as a dog -- in the center of the headboard or cutting out a section from the center of the wood headboard and installing a mirror.