Wall-mounting a headboard frees your bed frame, fixes the banging noise and works with adjustable bases. Here is how to find the height, hit the studs and hang it safely.
Most headboards are designed to bolt onto a bed frame, but plenty of people end up hanging them on the wall instead. Sometimes it is because the frame has no bracket holes. Sometimes it is because the headboard is oversized and would look wrong floating on frame legs. And increasingly it is because the bed is on an adjustable base, which has no headboard attachment point at all.
Wall-mounting is straightforward, and it solves two problems at once: the headboard stops moving with the bed, and the banging noise against the wall stops with it. Here is how to do it properly.
Not every headboard is meant to hang. Check three things.
This is the step people get wrong, and it is hard to undo once you have drilled.
Measure from the floor to the top of your mattress with all bedding on it. That is your baseline. A headboard should overlap the top of the mattress by several inches so no gap shows and pillows do not slide behind it. Add roughly four to six inches of overlap to your mattress height, and that gives you the bottom edge of the headboard. The top of the headboard then lands wherever the panel's own height puts it.
Two things change that number. A thick pillow-top mattress on a tall foundation sits much higher than a low-profile foam bed on a platform, so measure your actual bed rather than assuming a standard. And if you are on an adjustable base, measure with the head section flat, then check that the raised position does not push your pillows above the panel. Our guide to how tall a bed should be covers the height question in more detail.
Tape a paper outline of the headboard to the wall at your intended height and live with it for a day. It costs nothing and it catches mistakes.
A headboard hangs from the studs, not from the drywall. Run an electronic stud finder along the wall at your mounting height and mark both edges of each stud, then mark the center. In most homes studs sit sixteen inches apart on center, though older Los Angeles construction is less consistent and twenty-four inch spacing turns up regularly.
Aim to catch at least two studs. For a king-width panel, three is better. If your studs do not line up with the mounting points on the back of the headboard, screw a horizontal length of lumber into the studs first and mount the headboard hardware to that backer board instead.
Before you drill, think about what is inside the wall. Bedroom walls behind the bed are usually clean, but outlets and switches mean wiring is running somewhere nearby. Stay clear of the vertical zone directly above and below any outlet.
There are three common approaches.
Whatever you use, buy hardware rated for meaningfully more weight than the headboard. The load is not just the panel. It is the panel plus a person leaning back against it while reading.
Older Los Angeles homes often have lath and plaster rather than drywall, and mid-century apartments sometimes have concrete or masonry behind a thin finish. Plaster is brittle, so drill slowly with a masonry bit on a low setting and expect to hit wood lath rather than a modern stud. For brick or concrete, switch to a hammer drill and use sleeve or wedge anchors rated for the load. Standard drywall anchors are not an option for a headboard on any wall type. They will pull out.
Most can, but not all. The panel needs a solid backing to screw into and a weight within what your hardware and wall can carry. Headboards with integrated storage, very heavy solid pieces, and thin hollow-core panels are the usual exceptions. If the back is unbraced fiberboard, mount a backer rail across it first or leave it on the frame.
You should not. Drywall anchors, adhesive strips and toggle bolts alone are not adequate for a load that gets leaned on nightly. If the studs genuinely do not line up, screw a horizontal backer board into the studs you can reach and mount the headboard to that.
Set the bottom edge roughly four to six inches below the top of your made bed so no gap shows. Measure your own mattress and foundation stack rather than using a generic number, because bed heights vary by nearly a foot between a low platform setup and a tall pillow-top on a box spring.
Mounting it to the wall is the permanent fix, since the panel no longer travels with the frame. If you would rather keep it on the bed, add felt or rubber bumpers to the back of the headboard and check the frame itself, because a loose frame is often the real source of the movement. See our guide to fixing a squeaky bed frame.
Frame mounting is easier to reverse and moves with the bed, which renters often prefer. Wall mounting looks cleaner, eliminates noise, and is the only option with most adjustable bases. If your frame has bracket holes and you move often, use them. Our guide to attaching a headboard to a bed frame covers that route.
Match the mattress width or go slightly wider. A headboard narrower than the mattress looks like a mistake. Check our bed frame size chart for the standard widths by mattress size.
A headboard is the easy part. The mattress under it is what you actually sleep on. If yours is due for replacement, take our sleep quiz or come lie on a few options at one of our five Los Angeles showrooms. We deliver same day across most of the metro, and our crews can set up the frame and foundation while they are there.
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