Urban Nest

These days I have a long furniture wish list for our house.  When we moved to Richmond from our tiny house in Old Town Alexandria, we hardly had any furniture worth moving, and several pieces actually ended up at the dump.  It’s been a slow process furnishing the rooms in our home, and when it came to Violet’s and Nathan’s rooms, I needed to get creative.  I decided to use a trick that I saw Sarah Richardson use to create “faux” beds and attached furniture feet to the box springs.

Both of the box springs look like pieces of furniture and only cost around $50 for the fabric and feet.  Nathan’s bed obviously still needs the pillow treatment, but I’m really happy with how they turned out.  I used feet similar to these from Home Depot and sanded, primed and painted them.

If you want to try this trick at home, here’s how I created my faux furniture:

1. Start with a long strip of fabric that will fit around the box spring (you will probably have to sew 2 or 3 pieces of fabric together to get the right length).  To determine the width of the strip of fabric, add 7-8 inches to the depth of the mattress.  Finish the top and bottom edges with a zig zag stitch to prevent unraveling.  Wrap the fabric around the box spring to determine the exact length and pin to mark where you’ll sew the two ends together.
2. After you’ve sewn the two ends together, stretch the fabric over the box spring leaving 4 inches to fold over the top of the box spring.  Stitch the fabric to the top of the box spring to hold it in place (you’ll need to mitre the fabric at the corners).
3. Flip the box spring over and prepare to attach the fabric to the bottom side.  In my case, I wanted to make sure the stripes were level, and then I pinned it into place.
4. Staple the fabric to the bottom of the box spring, pulling it taut as you go.
5. Trim the box spring padding to create a space to screw in the furniture foot.  I attached 3 feet on each long side of the beds (6 total).
6. Drill a hole that is slightly smaller than the width of the screw on the furniture foot.
7. Cover the hole with the fabric, and use a pin to mark where the hole is.
8. Cut a hole in the fabric for the screw to go through, and
9. Screw in the foot.
10. Repeat for the remaining 5 feet.

Tip:  If any of the feet are wobbly, remove the foot, squirt some wood glue into the hole and reattach the foot.

I wanted Violet’s bed to have a very tailored skirt, so I used a slightly different approach.  

I attached the feet in the same method that I described above and then followed these steps:

1. Stitch a small fabric panel on the two end corners of the bed.  My panels are hemmed on 3 sides and then zig zag stitched along the tops to prevent unraveling.  I stitched them to the top of the box spring and then down both sides of the panel.
2. Then attach 2 long panels to either side of the bed by stitching them to the top of the box spring.  These are also hemmed on 3 sides and zig zagged along the top.  
3. Finally, attach a third panel to the end of the bed (again, hemmed and zig zagged) to create the look of a box pleat.

Do you have any clever, budget-saving tricks when it comes to furnishing your home?  Do share!