Putting fashion at head of bed

BEDROOM FASHION: Gail Watson makes headboards for a growing market. PICTURE / PAUL BROOKS

In a small but colourful workshop behind Renata's Art and Framing, Gail Watson plies her trade ... making headboards. Laid Back custom made upholstered headboards, to be exact.
There's a work table, rolls of cloth and other assorted fabrics, decorative items to add charm and display her headboards to their best advantage, and a large, shiny air compressor in the middle of the room, hooked up to an oversized stapler. Not your standard office equipment.
Gail is a trained interior designer, having learned and practised her craft in Australia. A fall and subsequent injuries left her future uncertain, and it led to her learning about pain syndromes and the complex workings of the brain.
Then she met Tony, who runs the Bed Barn in Palmerston North.
"People are asking for headboards, could you make one?" he asked Gail.
"I learned by going everywhere, looking, touching, YouTubing, then getting the materials and making them," says Gail.
Tony wanted just a basic headboard to match the bed base, but that wasn't enough for Gail.
"I had to start buttoning, studding and shaping," she says.
So she started her own business to produce a product more in tune with her interior design abilities. She still makes headboards for Tony but she also has her own growing client base.
"I can send to anyone around the country," she says.
Her headboards can be easily attached to the bed or fixed to the wall and they come in a huge range of fabrics, paints and colours, depending on the clients' wants and the décor of their home. Gail says she'll put up a YouTube video of her fixing a headboard to the wall so anyone can learn how to do it.
"It's easy," she says.
The headboards are made from scratch and upholstered meticulously.
"I use three different foams, three different waddings," says Gail.
Some have frames to give structure and a firm base to the buttoning. She designs with all tastes and purposes in mind; her children's headboards, while designed for young ones, are covered in an oiled cloth for easy cleaning. She has headboards for feminine tastes and those for blokes, and those to please couples by finding a common ground in decor.
Gail has also tracked down the MDF used to comply with Japanese and American market requirements, which also has the approval of the Asthma Foundation. "It has the lowest formaldehyde emission it's possible to make," she says.
Trained in colour, texture and all things decor, Gail can take her clients through fabrics, bedding and bedroom fashion trends to create the perfect headboard for each customer.
"I can do the whole package, if required," she says.
She does painted furniture as well.
"I make cushions to match the headboards, using the same fabric."
She uses high quality Warwick fabric, gets her wood bases cut at Kitchen Contours to her design and she's learning the intricacies of buttoning and beyond in consultation with retired master upholsterer, Jim Eyers.
"He mentors me. He still has his Singer treadle. He did his apprenticeship in 1943 so he's a real craftsman.
"I still have deep buttoning to learn yet; that's what Jim and I are doing next."
Gail's father was a builder and her mother learned to be a tailor during the war, making uniforms.
"She sat at her machine for all our lives."
She died aged 97, still sewing and still living on her own. Gail is combining the crafts of both her parents to produce a sought after product.
The best day to catch Gail is on Saturday during Riverside Market time, when she puts a few hours aside to talk to people.
Access to Laid Back Headboards is either via Renata's Framing or from the river side.
"People wander in, they browse, we chat, they can touch - I'm happy that everything out there [on display] can be squeezed, touched and inspected," says Gail.
Product can be viewed on line on Facebook under Laid Back Headboards.