Headboard Options

As part of July's to dos I'm working on getting our upstairs bedrooms open house ready. Three of the four rooms (the master, Charlotte's nursery and the computer/craft room) are all pretty much designed. Whether I love them in their current state or not, they'll certainly work for a showing.

The spare bedroom was a different story though. It was a large white box with nothing but a queen bed and a cheapy dresser in it. My mom and I worked on it a bit over the weekend and "staged" it with the items that'll be going in my master bedroom once we move. Here's a taste of what's in there so far:



There's my english licorice quilt, a Victoria Hagan end table snagged from Target, a lamp I just picked up at Marshall's and some pillowcases I recently made (check back Friday for a tutorial on the small floral one).

Not shown in the photo is an IKEA bookcase we purchased way back when that's currently standing in as a dresser, a rocking chair, and a large mirror. While this stuff is great and I lurve all the bright, happy colors, the walls are still very, very white. We have some plans for art to hang, but nothing for the headboard area, which is looking really pathetic. Here are some options I came up with for how to address the issue.

Option 1. A piece of artwork. I love the map print below (found in Sunny Champagne's etsy shop) and think it would work great with the colors of the room. Once we move it would likely find a home above my desk. My reservation with it is that I don't know that it'd go well with the other art I already have for the space (these IKEA prints).



Option 2. A curtain. An Apartment Therapy article from a couple years ago shows how a renter created a headboard using nothing more than a curtain rod and curtain. I don't have either of those things ready to go, but could probably find some pretty easily (why IKEA, we meet again). I'm not sure what color curtain to go for, and don't know what I'd do with said curtain once we move, though I'd probably figure something out.



Option 3. Slab doors. Here's another idea from Apartment Therapy and the one that I actually plan to do in the future as our permanant headboard. Buying the doors would be easy, but staining them would require some time, perhaps more than I have to spare. Certainly this is the most cost effective option though, since it's something I plan to do anyway.



So what say you? Should I go the artsy route and just slap a picture on the wall? Or should I break up all that paint and hang some curtains? Or find the time to make my planned headboard now? Or something entirely different? Please chime in!