HGTV Stars Give The Best Tips For A Stunning Headboard Design

Although the original purpose of a headboard was to create a barrier against cold air seeping through the walls, headboards eventually became used for decorative purposes, and continue to be one way to add a glamorous focal point to your design scheme, according to Home Stratosphere. A headboard can also be an important design feature when working with the architectural elements of the room such as windows or high ceilings. If you want to highlight other features of your room but still want a comfy headboard to lean against, the design of your headboard can shift attention to the other decorative items on display.

Some of our favorite HGTV designers weigh in with their best design tips on choosing a headboard that makes the most of the aesthetic in your room. Here are a few examples from Candice Olson, David Bromstad, and Sarah Richardson that you can borrow for your bedroom, no matter what challenges your room presents.

A velvet headboard instantly adds a luxurious and romantic feel to a bedroom, and helps balance the dimensions of a king-sized bed, according to interior designer Candice Olson. A master bedroom design that she created for one couple included a dark, charcoal grey headboard trimmed with silver nail-heads (via HGTV). When you walk into a master bedroom, the focal point is usually the bed and, of course, the headboard. However, this couple had a variety of artwork and objects that they had collected throughout their extensive travels, and they wanted those to be noticeable. Olsen chose the dark headboard color to focus the attention on these special items, rather than keeping it on the bed.

In the photo above, you can see how a similar look draws your eye to the lamps, the night tables, and the textures and decorative pillows on the bed. This is a great tip to borrow when considering the fabric and color for your headboard.  

Both interior designers, Sarah Richardson and Candice Olson, find ways to create such glamorous bedrooms that you'd never realize they're located in basements, including the one by Olson shown in the photo above. Olson created the floor-to-ceiling, tufted headboard so that it would be the focal point. It also draws the eye upwards and makes the space feel bigger. Since basements tend to be colder spaces than the rest of the house, an upholstered headboard adds a sense of coziness, as well.

In another basement design renovation, Richardson created a bright feature wall with a white and black floral wallpaper behind an arched headboard that was covered in quilted velvet fabric in a vibrant grass green color (via HGTV). Crisp white bed linens and white floor-to-ceiling drapes disguise the small basement windows, which combine with the headboard to give the overall look of a sunny, bright outdoor setting. 

David Bromstad loves to add artistic design and color to his work. In one design makeover, his clients had an enormous round, upholstered bed frame reminiscent of the swinging 1970s. The matching twin headboards that he created for that design were actually a sleek, minimal design so as not to detract from the bed frame, per HGTV. At the same time, he covered the wall behind the headboard with laser-cut mahogany in a very sculptured design, drawing the focus to the wall rather than the bed.  

Covering a whole wall in a custom art form sculpted from wood could be very pricey. However, Shane Mitchell offers a less expensive way to use a similar design style to craft a headboard. He made the piece above from a sheet of walnut plywood by making multiple channel cuts in it. If you would like to attempt this on your own but don't have the tools or same woodworking skills, you could attach smaller trim boards in a pattern of your choosing on top of your sheet of plywood. 

In many homes, the only place to put the bed is up against a wall that isn't completely flat. You may find yourself trying to situate your bed between two windows, or tucking it in along a sloped ceiling. Conversely, if your room has vaulted ceilings you may have to figure out how to fill the space above it so your bed doesn't look out of proportion to the rest of the room. Once again, headboards can come to the design rescue!

In the photo above, Candice Olson keeps the wooden headboard with a rattan cane insert low so as not to bump up against the slanted ceiling, nor draw attention to it. The soft silhouette of the bed pillows fill in for some extra, upholstered comfort without creating a tall, hard edge. In a different HGTV design renovation, an oversized, upholstered headboard was a great way to connect the bed with the vaulted ceiling. Adding a sparkling, crystal chandelier was a nice touch, too!

A wall-to-wall headboard can help make a small room feel wider, especially if it is upholstered in a light colored fabric that complements a light colored wall. For HGTV, designer Sarah Richardson created a plush, tufted headboard in a very subdued pattern that mimics the weave of the grasscloth wallpaper. The overall look is very restful and clean, which is an ideal feeling for a bedroom retreat. A neat tip is to top the headboard with a floating shelf to create a place to display artwork or photos. You could also attach over-the-bed lighting to the shelf.

In a different design version of a tufted wall-to-wall headboard, David Bromstad topped the headboard with bold artwork to create a color-grabbing dynamic in what, otherwise, would have been a very neutral room, per HGTV. You can use either Richardson's or Bromstad's ideas for a headboard as a way to highlight the features and functions that work best in your design.