Bedrail Cover Tutorial

Vera has learned to climb out of her crib so she will be moving into a regular bed soon. We are skipping the toddler bed and going straight to a twin-sized bed with a bedrail. My mother-in-law found a bedrail for us at a rummage sale. It was in great shape but had a bright blue cover, not exactly the look I was going for. Luckily the cover was removable, and I made a simple slipcover for the rail out of unbleached cotton osnaburg (the same fabric I used for these projects).

Materials:

1 1/2 yards of fabric

21" (approx 3/4 yard) Velcro

Coordinating thread

Sewing machine

Fabric marking pen

Pins

Rotary cutter or scissors

Serger or pinking shears

Tape measure or ruler

Instructions:

All seams are 1/2" unless otherwise noted.

First, trace your existing cover, adding 1/2" to the sides and top and 1" to the bottom for seam allowance. Cut two, one for each side of the cover.

Press the bottom edges of both pieces 1/2" then another 1/2".

Increase your stitch length to 3.5 and edge stitch the bottom hem for one side of the cover only.

Measure the zipper on the bottom of the original cover. Mine measured 39" so I cut a strip of fabric 40" x 7" long. This will become a flap with velcro at the bottom of the cover. Fold the strip of fabric in half lengthwise, right sides together, and sew both short ends. Trim the seams, clip the corners, and turn right side out.

Take the other side of the cover, the one with the unsewn hem, and lay wrong side up. Tuck the raw edge of the flap into the bottom hem of the cover, making sure it is centered. Pin in place.

With your stitch length still set at 3.5, edge stitch the hem, sewing on top of the flap as you go.

With the cover still facing wrong side up, press the flap down toward the bottom of the cover.

Turn over so right side is facing up and pin flap in place. With your stitch length still set at 3.5, edge stitch.

This is how the cover will look from the right side (outside) once the flap is finished.

Pin the two main cover pieces together, right sides facing. (Make sure you set your machine back to its standard stitch length, usually 2.5. If you're unsure of the fit, you can first sew the two pieces together with a basting stitch, then test the fit on your bedrail frame before sewing together with a smaller stitch length). Sew the two pieces together along the sides and top, leaving the bottom side with the flap open. You can use either a serger or pinking shears to finish the seams.

Turn right side out.

Cut seven 3" lengths of velcro (both the hook and loop sides). The soft side will be attached to the main cover and the rough side will be attached to the flap. Mark the main cover 2" up from the bottom edge, spacing the marks 3" apart. Repeat for the flap, marking 1/2" from the outer flap edge.

Sew on the velcro.

Pull the cover over your bedrail frame and secure with velcro.

Mattress Modification

We're having our first overnight guests this weekend, which motivated us to get the guest bedroom set up. Up until now it's been a dumping ground for boxes and furniture.

We have an antique iron bed, inherited from my grandmother. Someone had pieced together a plywood platform that sat on top of the metal frame, and on top of which the box spring sat. We figured it was just there for extra support, and craigslisted the wood before moving, rather than packing all of it into the moving truck. When we went to set up the bed at our new house we realized why the wood was there. Our modern-day box spring no longer fit on the antique bed frame; it was too long. I didn't get a before picture, but where the rails met the headboard and foot board there were metal pieces that kept the box spring from sitting down inside the rails. We considered a few different solutions:

Build another plywood platform? Purchasing all that wood would be expensive, and the mattress was already pretty high off the floor. It would be nice if the box spring could sit down inside the rails.

Lengthen the rails? This would require welding, and with no welding experience or tools this would be difficult and costly.

The only option left was to modify the box spring and the ends of the rails. Zach used a reciprocating saw and a blade made for cutting metal to remove the pieces of metal at the ends of the rails, so the box spring could fit down inside them.

However, there was also a rail at the bottom of the foot board that was in the way. Zach removed the fabric covering the box spring to reveal the wood frame (and other high quality materials used to build it, like cardboard).

After a little carpentry, Zach reshaped the box spring so it angled in at the bottom and fit inside the foot board.

He then stapled the fabric back on using a nail gun and brads. The entire project took about three hours to complete and was completely free! We realize if we ever need to replace the box spring we will be in the same situation, but decided that we could always lengthen the rails later on.

Master bedroom progress

If you remember from the bedroom inspiration board I shared, I wanted an upholstered headboard with wooden trim. I wasn't set on the color of the wood, but knew I wanted something with curvy, simple lines that I could upholster myself.

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And so began the search. Naively, I thought it would be pretty easy to find what I was looking for. After all, there's a ton of secondhand French provincial furniture out there. We checked craigslist, Goodwill, two antique malls and a flea market, all without success. I did spot a few headboards that had the right shape, but none were queen size. I kept checking craigslist, convinced something would turn up. And I finally found something that would work....except for the $400 price tag. Why the high price? It was the Charlotte headboard from Pottery Barn, which retails for $500 (plus $75 shipping), and according to the seller had never been used.

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Although it wasn't a terrible price, we figured it would probably cost about the same to buy a new already-upholstered headboard. So I decided to take a chance and offered the seller $200 for it, an offer which they politely declined. By now you're probably wondering why I'm giving you so many details about a headboard I didn't buy, but there's a happy ending to this story. Three weeks later the headboard was reposted on craigslist with a lower price of $325. I made an offer a bit higher than my last, and ended up getting the headboard and a metal frame for $285!

We still need to get nightstands and choose a paint color for the walls...oh and patch the hole left from the intercom speaker.

We had to make a few changes to the frame and headboard; we replaced the regular casters with adjustable ones, to raise the height a little, and drilled new holes in the headboard to attach the frame. I also hemmed our bed skirt a few inches. I'd eventually like to add an upholstered panel, but haven't quite decided how I want it to look.

B & B

S: Zach and I spent most of Memorial day weekend in San Antonio. We went to a baby shower for our good friends the Rice's, then stayed the night at the Beauregard House Bed and Breakfast in King William Historic District. We stayed in the Picasso room, which was very nice, but from what we could tell lacked any decor having to do with Picasso.