Bedrooms are such special places for children as they are usually the one space in their lives that is under their own control - a place where they get to choose where there things go, create their own world and entertain their secrets and fantasies.
The son of one of my clients is 8 years old and his mother wanted to have something in his room to ground the space and give the room some color and interest. I came up with the idea of a custom headboard to give the room a focal point and a comfortable place for him to rest when sitting up in bed reading.
The son is really into football and I was asked that the headboard reference his passion and tie in with the bedding that the clients already had. I'm not a fan of literal translations of a theme, so I chose to layer in the football theme by using curves and graphic elements to relate to the shape of the football. Being that the headboard was for a young man I really wanted the final product to be more than just a headboard - it needed to be multifunctional. I designed a number of places to store items that are important to their son. The white bands coming from the top of the headboard are constructed from wide elastic bands and stitched across to create sections allowing him to hold an ipod and more. Large blue pockets can hold books or toys. The leather section gives him more secret pockets to put special items that he wants to keep close by. For the design of the pockets I imagined the football soaring towards the goal posts - hence the blue representing the sky, the leather the ball and the white bands the goal posts.