We made our daughters round out of a oriental silky material. I guess I have never been deep enough into her room to see if it collects dust/lint. She does a lot of reading and computer work in her bed so it doesn't sit idle long, so I am guessing not. The other one we made out of faux suede for my mother-in-law, it looks much like the one pictured, but we mounted it to her existing bed frame. It seems to stay nice, maybe her cleaning lady vacuumed it? I always say there was a reason something went out of style back in the day like wood floors (cold, scratches),tile counter tops (grout cleaning!!) possibly this is why upholstered headboards went out. They were dusty?

Did you check Ballarddesigns.com? They have them and you can choose one of their fabrics. They may even let you supply your own fabric, not sure. I had a floral one made once. I had the fabric and I took it to an upholsterer and he made it the shape and style I wanted. The shape of mine was kind of simple, but I had the fabric ruched across the top and sides with solid piping and then the fabric was set flat across the front, no tufts.

I also got one on hsn. It was $300 for a Cal King. The legs are somewhat adjustable, but still far too tall for my bed. I bought a mounting bracket on Amazon for $20 or $30 and hung the frame on the wall. I love that it doesn't creak or anything - I'm amazed that it really doesn't move at all. Also, buying the mounting bracket was cheaper than buying the "super special exclusive" brackets from Select Comfort (we have a Sleep Number bed.) The headboard is comfortable to lean against. It did have a packaging smell to it - I had to let it air out in my dining room for around a week before I brought it up to my bedroom. When I was looking, they had the same headboard on the csn stores website for around the same price. Here is a link that might be useful: hsn headboard

I understand exactly what you're thinking of doing! I am sure that this can be done, but it might require a furniture-maker to arrange the frame correctly. If you are handy though, I don't see why you couldn't make it work. Could your upholsterer come over and share his opinion? Our guy both could and would do that (come over *and* rebuild the piece). We are planning to do the same thing, only with a new sofa, because of my issues with arthritis and a bad back, to give me lots of support in bed. Our favorite local furniture dealer said that he'd be able to get us the upholstered frame only of any sofa we wanted. The only thing we'd need to do is get accurate measurements so that our queen mattress and box spring would slide in. Of course, it will look like an always open sleeper sofa, but with the right combo of upholstery and bed linens, that would be fine with me. Good luck with your quest. I'll be interested in knowing what happens.