45 stylish headboard designs to suit every kind of bedroom
The right headboard can go a long way towards tying a whole bedroom scheme together, making it look perfectly considered and well finished. Headboard designs can introduce colour and pattern to a more muted scheme, or can act as the unifying element to bring a riot of textiles together in a pleasingly cohesive way.
Form and function are both key when it comes to choosing or designing headboards, as you’re very likely to spend at least some time with your head resting against it, drinking a morning cup of tea or reading a book. From that point of view, an upholstered headboard – where a fabric of your choosing covers a lovely padded foam form – is the most comfortable. But that doesn’t mean we’re against the likes of rattan headboards or even cane as they can bring a touch of cool modernity to a room – and you can simply prop a pillow (we recommend a large square one) behind you for reclining purposes.
How to fit a headboard
There are two ways to fit a headboard: attach it the bed or attach it to the wall. The former is by far the easier option, but attaching it to the wall ensures no gaps and potential noise as you move in bed and the headboard hits the wall. If you’re fitting it to the bed, the headboard needs to have legs, which will have a cut-out section that slots onto adjacent knobs on the bed – it really is very straightforward and can work well when there’s no skirting board between the bed and the wall to create a gap. If you’re attaching it to the wall, you’ll need French cleat brackets, a drill and a lot of patience to measure everything correctly. For seasoned DIYers, it is fairly simple and YouTube has plenty of videos to guide you. For renters, a headboard attached to the bed is definitely preferable.
Christopher Horwood1/44To create a timeless country-house feel, look to Cindy Leveson’s London flat for inspiration. In the main bedroom, she has used the same floral fabric – Colefax and Fowler’s ‘Lincoln’ – on the headboard, bed canopy, valance and curtains, combining it with blue ‘Sudbury Park’ wallpaper, also from Colefax and Fowler. It is very charming and shows how well this aesthetic can work even on a smaller scale.
Chris Snook2/44Twin beds that can be joined or separated as needed can be an excellent option for a versatile spare room. In this bedroom of a 16th-century cottage in West Sussex, Holly Vaughan of Vaughan Design had these headboards upholstered by John Haswell in fabric from Gaston y Daniel with a rope trim from Samuel & Sons for a design that works just as well together as it does apart. It’s also important to think about the backdrop for your headboard – here, Tess Newall’s ‘Herbarium’ wallcovering sets the perfect tone and is a charming nod to the natural beauty of the surrounding countryside.
Dean Hearne3/44For a more pared-back, contemporary approach, take your cue from this example in an innovative newbuild house in Suffolk. A Natural Bed Company ‘Shetland’ bed with a headboard in Moon’s ‘Parquet’ wool in chestnut feels perfectly in keeping with the Douglas fir panelling that lines the room – and much of the house. A Pierre Frey linen throw and a striped quilt by Caroline Marcq in Mark Alexander’s ‘Polo’ linen complete the earthy, textured look.
Christopher Horwood4/44In designer Tamsin Saunders’ own home in Richmond, her eldest daughter Freya’s bed has a headboard covered in Svenskt Tenn’s ‘Mirakel’, which helps to bring the whole scheme together. The fabric’s vivid colours echoed by a group of Chinese watercolours that hang above the bed and a one of the painted lamps that artist Freya sells through her business, Black Lion Workshops.
Mark Anthony Fox5/44If you’ve got an attic bedroom with low or sloping ceilings, you can still make a headboard work. In fact, it can inspire a much more interesting and inventive design. Mother and daughter design duo Laura and Gracy Berkeley-Hawkes devised this special winged headboard to bring the bed out from under the sloping ceiling of this bedroom of a Cotswold barn conversion. They had it made by Lorfords Contemporary and covered in ‘Conway’ in cocoa by Designers Guild for a wonderfully warm and cocooning feel.
Rebecca Reid6/44Extending the headboard along the wall alongside a single bed is an excellent idea in a children’s bedroom or a multi-functional spare room with a daybed. In this Marylebone flat designed by Tom Bartlett of Waterworks, the wraparound design is upholstered in Christopher Farr Cloth’s ‘Belge’ in green, which is complemented by the valance in Etro’s ‘Balta’.
Dean Hearne7/44Set designer Tattie Isles’ magical Dorset cottage is filled with characterful touches. Here, a suzani that she picked up for just £40 from face Marketplace and a quilt from Projektityyny bring softness, colour and pattern to the simple rattan headboard. The walls are painted in Edward Bulmer’s ‘Jonquil’.
Astrid Templier8/44Matching the headboard to your curtains or blinds can help to create a wonderfully coherent and impactful scheme, especially in a smaller bedroom. In this room in a Herne Hill house decorated by Pandora Taylor, the headboard and roman blind are in Beata Heuman’s ‘Palm Drop’ fabric in sky blue/plaster, which tones perfectly with walls painted in ‘Selvedge’ by Farrow & Ball. The metal bed frame is from Original Bed Co.
Boz Gagovski9/44Carlos Garcia’s ‘Anatolia’ fabric is a current favourite of ours, and we love how rich and luxurious it looks on this headboard, against a backdrop of a Jean Monro wallpaper. The combination is the work of Brandon Schubert, who decorated this 16th-century cottage in Wiltshire.
Christopher Horwood10/44If you are working with a four-poster bed with drapes, or indeed a bed canopy, you may not want to introduce patterned fabrics everywhere. The plain headboard works well against an antique crewelwork textile in this 17th-century Huguenot weavers' house in Spitalfields, decorated by Rachel Allen.
Dean Hearne11/44Having lighted on his ideal house in the wild Devon countryside, Tom Cox of HÁM Interiors set about making it into a warm and welcoming place to get away, filled with the distinctive art and antiques he has grown up with. The main bedroom has a headboard in ‘Delgado’ by Colefax and Fowler. A custom ‘Cabin’ sign artwork hangs above the bed, and a ‘Harrison’ side table (both by Studio HÁM) stands alongside.
Dean Hearne12/44This custom headboard in the main bedroom of the cottage next door to Tom Cox’s main house is covered in ‘Cheyenne’ by Güell Lamadrid, and the Vaughan ‘Oban Rise & Fall’ light has a shade in the same fabric.
Mark Anthony Fox13/44Instead of a traditional headboard, a piece of tongue and groove panelling can be very smart, especially when there are plenty of other patterns in the room to compete. In this Cotswold house by Emma Burns, Cole & Son’s ‘Sweet Pea’ wallpaper provides plenty of visual interest, so that the panelling makes for a calming look around the bed.
Simon Brown14/44Wavy headboards are definitely having a moment, as seen in this Notting Hill townhouse with interiors by Studio Vero. We love the cheerful orange fabric on this one. This is another clever example of twin beds that can be joined together to make a double when needed.
Alexander James15/44Studio Peake brings a fresh spirit to this Arts & Crafts house in Surrey. With its low ceilings and dark beams, the Surreu house was looking rather sad and neglected, until interior designer Sarah Peake brought a new, energetic spirit to its rooms using a bold palette and pretty prints. A headboard in Namay Samay’s ‘Sitaron’ and Vanderhurd and Wicklewood cushions balance Antoinette Poisson’s ‘Jaipur’ wallpaper in the spare room.
Helen Cathcart16/44Isabella Worsley has turned a once pokey and disjointed cottage into a coherent and expansive house for a young family moving from London to the countryside. In the main bedroom, the walls are covered in Susanna Davis’ ‘Birzai’ paper-backed linen. A headboard in Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler’s ‘Squiggle’ contrasts with a bespoke side table painted in Farrow & Ball’s ‘Brinjal’. The armchair is upholstered in ‘Zanzibar’ by Peter Dunham.
Michael Sinclair17/44This elegant bespoke four-poster bed, in a room in a Victorian house in London by Lucy Hammond Giles, has a headboard in Rose Tarlow’s ‘Aida’ linen in roux. It is flanked by a table with a cloth in Guy Goodfellow Collection’s ‘Fez Weave’ and a chest of drawers from Max Rollitt. Paintings by Richard Ballinger from Jenna Burlingham Gallery and Paul Resika provide colourful focal points.
Jonathan Bond18/44Katharine Paravicini has warmed up a Feather & Black bed frame with a custom headboard covered in Ottoline’s ‘Tulips of Belgravia’ fabric. It is a pretty scheme packed with colour and is a great example of how you can add a headboard to a bed that usually wouldn’t support one.
Dean Hearne19/44The scheme for design director India Holmes’ bedroom was influenced by her grandparents’ collection of Asian art, which mostly lives in her bedroom now. The yellow and red palette is established by a custom dupion wallpaper by de Gournay (where India used to be design director) above the dado and ‘Mapi’ hand-painted wallpaper below. India upholstered the headboard in Beata Heuman’s ‘Palm Drop’ fabric in sea green/chalk, with matching cushions.
Tom Griffiths20/44The walls in the spare bedroom of Kate Cox’s flat are covered in Jean Monro’s ‘Clover’ wallpaper in Flower Pot. Not wanting to crowd the room with too much pattern, Kate chose a neutral fabric for the Studio HÁM headboard: ‘Ismaelia’ from Pierre Frey.
Owen Gale21/44In Angus and Charlotte Buchanan’s bedroom, they have created an easy, airy canopy using a lightweight aluminium frame and lots of white linen. The valance and headboard are done in Buchanan Studio's Studio Stripe in rose and add to the airy, calm feeling, while bringing pattern to the room.
Simon Brown22/44A headboard in ‘Beaucaire’ linen by Nicole Fabre Designs from Tissus d’Hélène blends with walls in ‘Pavilion Blue’ by Farrow & Ball in this bedroom by Samantha Todhunter. The bedcover is by Torna Lucia and the ‘End of Bed’ bench is from the Turner Pocock x Lorfords Contemporary collection.
Paul Massey23/44Lisa Mehydene, founder of online homeware platform edit58, was looking for a weekend house in the Cotswolds when she found this loftily proportioned converted barn on the site of a former spiritual retreat. In the bedroom, walls in Farrow & Ball’s ‘Setting Plaster’ showcase a headboard made by John Haswell using an old rug for the upholstery; the remnants were then turned into a blind and a cushion.
Sarah Griggs24/44A headboard doesn’t have to be the statement in a room, as this scheme demonstrates. The main bedroom of this house in Chelsea had to be ‘fun but liveable’, says interior designer Tiffany Duggan. The plain green fabric on the headboard tones with the printed curtains and walls in and Farrow & Ball’s ‘Pond Green’.
Jan Baldwin25/44In this brookside house, Thibaut’s woven paper wallcovering contrasts with the headboard and seat of the chair in Manuel Canovas’ ‘Bordeaux’ in ciel, from Colefax and Fowler. The fabric brings colour and pattern to the room.
Paul Massey26/44Modernising without losing character is no mean feat, but Carlos Garcia has approached the decoration of this early 18th-century house and its Tudor elements with great sensitivity, marrying period details with colour, pattern and contemporary touches. The headboard and valance in Nicole Fabre Designs’ ‘Laure’ linen. The cut-out corners on the headboard are a small detail but they really enhance the overall look.
Alexander James27/44The bespoke headboard in the second bedroom in this Notting Hill pied-à-terre by Studio Peake is in ‘Wicklewood’ in dark pink from Blithfield. The wall light is one of a pair from Pooky.
Michael Sinclair28/44Pandora Taylor has created an incredibly striking bubble-inspired design for a spare room in her own home. It is covered in Lewis & Wood’s ‘Rooksmore’ linen and set against walls in Calico’s ombré 'Aurora' wallcovering in azure, which adds to the atmospheric, watery effect. ‘That hazy moment between being awake and being asleep always brings up ideas,’ says Pandora, and the disconnected shapes of the bubble headboard seem to embody that very moment.
Simon Brown29/44‘We loved the cool, pared-down style of a house belonging to a Swedish art collector, which we had seen in a magazine,’ say the owners of this west London terrace home. They called in designer Hugh Leslie, whose unmistakable style gradually transformed the house into a smart family home. Onn the first floor is the pretty, generously proportioned main bedroom, for which Hugh had their existing headboard recovered by Ridge Interior Furnishings, in a Prelle fabric, ‘Jaspe’ in the froment colourway from Alton Brooke.
30/44At rural shepherd’s hut retreat Aller Dorset, the headboards are custom designs covered in Christopher Farr Cloth’s ‘Carnival’ fabric, or a blue Rapture & Wright design. Luckily, there is a whole range of appealing headboard designs available from The Aller Studio.
Paul Massey31/44The main bedroom in Susan Deliss’ country house in France has a simple headboard upholstered in an antique suzani. The bed is covered with an antique quilt, hand-dyed by Susan with indigo. She has mounted an antique Ikat textile to create an artwork for the wall above the bed.
32/44This truly unique headboard was designed by Rachel Chudley for her former east London home. The shape was inspired by the leaves of the toleware lights on the wall next to the bed, and it is covered in red velvet for the most impactful finish.
Davide Lovatti33/44In Tara Craig’s London flat, a relatively simple headboard from her own company Ensemblier sits below a fabric half-tester, and pretty shell wall lights protrude on either side to make reading easier. Tara’s company works with artisans to make furniture by hand, using traditional materials.
Paul Massey34/44Virginia Howard chose a muted palette for this London home, contrasting the pink throughout the living spaces with a soft green bedroom. She kept the scheme tonal by employing a simple green headboard against the green-grey walls and matching curtains. Touches of blush help to bring a sense of warmth to the room.
Owen Gale35/44In the main bedroom of Jeremy Langmead’s Suffolk house, decorated by Susan Deliss, the walls are covered in Robert Kime’s ‘St Abbs’ wallpaper and the bed features a patterned suzani. The use of a headboard in dark blue grounds all the prints in the room and anchors the scheme.
Simon Brown36/44A headboard covered in Jane Shelton fabric contrasts with dark grey herringbone cashmere walls in a spare room at a Belgian art collector’s London home designed by Freddy van Zevenbergen.
Sarah Hogan37/44Headboards can even be completely flat and, if you’re a dab hand with a paintbrush, you could even create your own design on a simple piece of wood or ply. A headboard painted in an elegant shell design by Paola Cumiskey adds elegance to the main bedroom of this Norfolk village house belonging to Alan and Sarah Wilson and designed by George Carter (who is known primarily for his award-winning gardens).
Simon Brown38/44This headboard in Emma Burns’ London flat exemplifies a lovely ‘make do and mend’ approach. ‘It is covered in an ancient patchwork made from my mother’s old dresses. I originally used it as a tablecloth,’ Emma explains. This is such a good idea if you’ve got any vintage textiles you want to repurpose, be they clothing or remnants from another upholstery project.
39/44Author and designer Paul Golding spent seven years restoring this exquisite 18th-century palazzo in Malta. ‘I couldn't resist its romantic decay,’ he says. The bedroom walls are stencilled in a pattern copied from a Carmelite convent in Medina, providing the most glorious backdrop for a shell-shaped headboard in gesso and silver gilt made by Lincoln Cato.
Paul Massey40/44Another picture-perfect example of the matchy-matchy look can be found in Robert Moore’s south London home. He used ‘Palma Large’ fabric from Bernard Thorp for the headboard, curtains and an armchair in the main bedroom. Neutral walls help to keep things balanced and make sure the pattern doesn’t feel too overpowering. The overall effect is very pleasing indeed.
Lucas Allen41/44The leopard print headboard takes centre stage in this bedroom of Henri Fitzwilliam-Lay’s Victorian country house, which also features panels of tropical Pierre Frey wallpaper and a matching tropical-themed lampshade. The scheme is fun and daring.
Michael Sinclair42/44Blue and white striped walls make this room feel bigger – a clever effect that is reinforced by the matching headboard. The subtle nautical style with industrial touches seems particularly fitting for a bedroom in a Victorian water tower conversion.
Simon Upton43/44Casamidy’s ‘Hacienda’ silver-leaf headboard provides a focal point in this bedroom, creating a glamorous feel, enhanced by the red bed linen and matching ribbon of colour running around the top of the wall. Anne-Marie Midy, of furniture company Casamidy, inherited this house in the south of France and has since lovingly restored it to refresh the interiors without losing the charm of the space.
Simon Brown44/44Nicole Fabre Designs’ ‘Laure’ fabric was used for the curtains and headboard in this bedroom in a London garden square house. The floral pattern brings a pretty feel the otherwise pared-back space, with walls painted in a calm off-white shade.
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