A Rental Bedroom’s Transformation Has Palm Springs Style

A rattan-style headboard design spans the entire length of the wall. At first glance, it looks like something straight out of an upscale interior design magazine, but Mallory actually DIYed this, too, using a few unexpected materials — including cardboard, foam, and cane material.

“First I used foam [for the black trim] but it ended up everywhere and was so messy, plus I couldn’t get the curves to look high-end and not shaky,” she says. “I finally decided to use cardboard since it was easier to cut and trace, then I stapled some cheap, thin wood strips from The Home Depot to the back of the cardboard.”

To make the cardboard more “plush,” she added stick-on foam and batting and stapled it to the wood. She used art hooks and nails to secure it to the wall before moving on to the rustic detailing underneath the trim. “The cane was also difficult to source because I needed it to be very wide. Like, at least 40 inches wide so the seams wouldn’t show,” she notes. “I found a giant piece directly from a manufacturer called Yeeyahome, who created a custom 40-inch-wide order for me.”