Foam selection for DIY Headboard.

Mattress Talk General Mattresses Questions
1

Hello,

I’ve been lurking for a while learning useful advice about mattresses.

Recently I’ve been thinking about making a DIY headboard. After watching some Youtube videos, I have noticed that people use different, random kinds of foam for the stuffing.

For example:
DIY No Sew Head Board Glue Glider Max
User uses a “1 inch thick polyfoam”

DIY Tufted Headboard Tutorial
User uses a 3inch thick memory foam from Costco

Most other videos use something very random that they can get their hands on without much consideration of why they picked one kind of foam than another.

Are there some useful guidelines or considerations to prefer one kind of foam or material to another for the use in a HEADBOARD rather than a mattress? Polyfoam vs. memory foam vs. something else. I don’t know if firm or soft is preferable for this use (for instance, it is vertical rather than horizontal) or what the pro’s and con’s might be for this usage. This topic doesn’t seem to be covered at length. I would consider comfort, durability, price and availability to be important but all depends on context and I am not sure where to start as it’s unclear what to compare these with.

I am concerned about picking a low-quality material that would deform, not hold shape for tufting or perhaps foam that would sag unevenly and being unable to replace it once it’s securely attached in the fabric housing. At the same time I wouldn’t want to spend a fortune on this as then it would somewhat defeat the purpose of not buying a pre-made headboard.

Any considerations or advice is welcome and much appreciated.

2

Hi cassin,

While I’m no expert in making furniture and there are many others who could give you much better advice than I could (and hopefully they will see your post) … a headboard doesn’t bear any weight so the durability of the foam wouldn’t be a significant issue and I would tend to use lower quality/density foams than if you were building something that was designed to support weight and needed more cushioning.

I would think your choices would be primarily determined by the look of the finished project you were aiming for. If the “feel” of the headboard is also important and you prefer the feel of a slower response material when you are leaning against it then I would choose lower density memory foam (which would be more costly) over polyfoam which has a faster response.

Phoenix