Record Album Headboard

My older Son`s bedroom, when he lived at home, was decorated with a music theme. We hung the Beatles pictures that are now in my youngest Son`s apartment, and used album frames to hang some old Rock Albums that had great covers (like the Rolling Stone`s "Sticky Fingers" with a real zipper).

Our album is in much better shape than this one.

I hung some old 45s with the yellow record player adapters in them, and used some of the adapters to cover the lamp shade by his bed. How many of you remember these adapters? My husband bought a t-shirt at the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame that had a painted adapter on the front of it. He wore it one day while we were traveling and went into a store where older people would come up to him and recognize the picture, and then they would turn to their kids and say, "Do you know what that is?" They did not.

These adapters would go into the hole in the middle of the 45 records to play on a turntable.

I baked some albums over bowls to form "album bowls" and he used them for remotes, keys or his wallet. You can make them in many shapes depending on what bowl or glass you use to melt it over. This is a fun craft for all those Olivia Newton John albums you have laying around. Oh, Is that just me? You can find instructions on how to make the bowls on the internet.

You can make these in minutes  and in all shapes and sizes.

Now for the headboard. I went to an old record store and bought ten of our favorite old albums. Most were just a few bucks or less a piece.  Then off to Lowes. I bought some 2 to 3 inch flat head black screws, anchors, and spacers for the screws.  The spacers are plastic tubes and I bought two different sizes. Four  spacers were about one inch long, and six were about one half of an inch long. You can buy what ever size you like depending on how far you want the albums from the wall.

I laid the albums on the floor to figure out how I wanted them arranged on the wall.  My husband and I held the lowest row on the wall, and using a pencil, marked the center holes of the albums on the wall. We marked them a foot or so above the bed, so the pillow, or our Son`s head, would not hit them while sleeping. Then we measured the distance between the marks, and made sure they were straight on the wall using a level. I drilled holes for the the anchors, hammered the anchors into the holes, put a flat head screw through the hole in one of the albums, then a short spacer on the screw, and screwed  the album into the anchor.  I then repeated this process for all the albums on the bottom row.

This headboard was over a twin bed. Add more albums to the ends for a larger bed.

For the next row we held the two albums up so they were staggered and overlapping the bottom row. Marked the center hole, measured and leveled the marks to make sure they were centered, drilled holes for the anchors, hammered in the anchors, put the screw in the album, use a longer spacer, and screw it into the wall.

Alternate rows with two and then three albums, and long and short spacers. You can make the headboard wider or taller by just adding albums.

Inexpensive and they really "turn" into a conversation piece.

Not a great picture, but you can see  how it looks with the bed made and pillows in place.