Full Time Frugal : Inexpensive DIY headboard for a small space

We have lived in this house just over one year now. And I still love it as much as I did the day we decided to put in an offer.

However, the love for my house has not blinded me to the fact that its not perfect. Take, for example, our master bedroom. Our master is actually a tiny bit smaller than Audrey's bedroom. Add in that there are *four* doors in our bedroom (one entrance door, one closet door, one bathroom door and one door onto our rooftop patio), and all those door eat up floor space. Which means we really don't have a lot of furniture placement options in our bedroom and have to be very thoughtful when choosing our furniture.

When we sold the old house we also sold our old bedroom set because it would not fit in this room. In fact any traditional headboard would have taken up too much space in our room. So I had to get a little creative. And, as always, I had to do it on the cheap.

Here is what we did...

We used:
- two sheer curtain tab top panels that were on clearance at JYSK for $5 each (I couldnt have made them myself for that price)
- one curtain rod also from JYSK for just under $10
- two packages of icicle lights on clearance at target, 70%off, paid $10 for both sets
- one dimmer switch a little under $10 from Wal-Mart
- drill, screws, and hooks- on hand

What you will need

This is the blank space above our bed. Those decorative wall hangings on either side were actually a great deal from Big Lots! Two in a package for $3. The idea was that someone would buy many packages and hang them from the ceiling and each other to make a screen type room diver. I just used the two, attached them to the wall with silver thumb tacks and they are as pretty as can be.

Our lovely blank grey wall

That Guy installed the curtain rod hardware and a few of the hooks for the lights to hang from.

That Guy being so handy. He's becoming a lot like my first celebrity crush
... Bob Vila. Not. Even. Kidding.

First strand of the lights hung on the hooks.

Then That Guy spaced the second row a few inches under where the hanging "icicles" ended.

Putting in the second row of hooks.

He continued in this way until he had used both set of lights and covered as much wall space as he could.

Okay, I admit, it doesn't look very pretty right now.

That Guy also added a nice dimmer switch to the wall on my side of the bed so I wouldn't have to unplug the lights every night and I could adjust the light intensity from soft glow to "I really want to finish this book!"