apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

In our last apartment, the bedroom and living room were linked by French doors. Since each room also had other, separate entrances, we decided to shut the doors and hang textiles (Urban Outfitters fabric) over them on each side. My partner and I put the sofa against the fabric-covered doors in the living room and the bed against the fabric-covered doors in the bedroom. The bold printed fabric on either side of the doors framed the bed and sofa nicely.

what a great idea for a headboard. I just bought that duvet from ikea for only $6. I also love that you paired it with an unexpected color for the sheets.

I've thought of doing this, but always worried about the downward tension that would inevitably result from sitting up in bed/leaning against it. I suppose if this is in front of a window you wouldn't necessarily be doing that, but if the same treatment were used for effect on a normal wall... Curious to know others' experiences.

my apartment is a long open room, so I hung a curtain, made from black and white fabric I found and sewed, onto the back of a room divider which makes an interesting headboard and room separator.

You could create tension on the fabric if you lean against the wall a lot. One idea might be to create an iron frame attached to the bed, like a kind of modern half-tester, so you're not ripping a rod out of the wall if you pull on the fabric. Or you could just use a staple gun. You'll then have some holes, but those are simple to patch if you need to.

I have an iron canopy bed and I hang curtains on the back (red right now). I love the warmth of fabric there.

I did this back in the 80's: I hung a patchwork quilt that my grandmother had made for me above my bed - the bonus was that it insulated the cold wall behind my bed keeping the room much warmer!

More recently, I installed a curved aluminum hospital drapery track on the ceiling in front of my window wall and along the adjacent wall and hung 8 IKEA Sanela floor-length navy-blue velvet drapery panels which I'd hemmed and sewn together in pairs. Now it looks like there are windows on two sides of my bedroom instead of just one.

I really like the look, and I wanted to put our bed in front of the bedroom window - it's small and unappealing, and we have dramatic curtains which we keep drawn most of the time. I decided not to because I didn't want to be sleeping with our faces right under the glass and risk having it all land on us in an earthquake.

It might be neat to put up another set of curtains as a headboard and imply that there's another window, but I think it would be just too much curtains!

I tried putting the bed in a couple of places in our bedroom, but it ended up looking best right in front of our really tall windows and has a similar look (see http://www.flickr.com/photos/55323249@N00/830873570/in/set-72157603717580661/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/55323249@N00/830873494/in/set-72157603717580661/). I thought about getting a headboard, but I really like the height of the curtains and decided not to break up the line.

It's nice to see someone else make this work, too!

Mine experience with this was bad.

I did this same thing a long time ago when I was living at home. While they stayed fine for me, but with my boyfriend it was another story. Many times I end up having a curtain rod to replace because of the tension of him sitting up in bed while reading or watching TV. No matter how many times I said, watch the curtains, it didn't matter in the least. In the two years I had them, I had to replace the rod like 4 times and live with it being slightly bent on "his side" most of the time. I ended up eventually taking them down.

I think it all really depends on how willing the person is to keep checking that there is no pull on the curtains.

I did this with a fuzzy pink sheet of fabric - sewed an open hem and slid it onto a curtain rod. The softness of fabric on the wall behind you is awesome, especially if it has some texture. The pulling was a tiny problem, but minor compared to the benefits.

I'm working the look right now. My bedroom apartment has really odd windows so there's very little wall space (plus the building manager insists on putting up those very Floridian plastic horizontal shades).
If you hang them high, they give your room the illusion that it's larger than it really is. Or taller.
Of all the neat things I'd love to put behind my bed (headboard, large photo collage) it's not my favorite, but we make it work.
I like the dark heavy fabric; it gives the illusion of a "headboard" like background. Light colors can be pretty but don't have the same effect.