The king-size mattress without a headboard looks unfinished; the louvered doors on the closet in the master bedroom are a bother — and your budget is just as thin as spaghetti. These conditions require just a little ingenuity which will add big panache to a shabby chic-style bedroom. Simply eliminate the closet doors; mount a fat dowel across the closet opening, and hang fabric drapes on big wooden rings to conceal your laundry. Distress those louvered doors and attach to the wall behind the bed, giving you immediate decor for almost pocket change and a mere weekend’s worth of work.

Assess the cabinet doors horizontally to be certain they reach approximately 84 inches across when lined up together. A headboard for a 78-inch-wide king bed must extend 3 inches on both sides of the bed. Louvered cabinet doors are available in a variety of sizes — for instance, you’d need three bi-fold single doors which measure 28 inches wide daily for an 84-inch headboard.

Remove the louvered doors in the closet, and remove all the hardware. When the doors are hinged together, leave these hinges set up. Clean the doors and then lay them out in a well-ventilated work space. Hinge all the doors with the rear, wall-facing side.

Paint the doors with milk paint. The paint is environmentally “clean” — a nutritious addition to your bedroom — and will chip erratically when implemented over an existing finish, simplifying your faux-distressing project. Once the paint is dry, go above the doors gently with a steel putty knife to loosen and eliminate some paint in the areas which are chipping.

Seal and protect the distressed and chipped finish with a coat of furniture wax or matte low-VOC polyurethane.

Screw two 72-inch pieces of 1-by-3 trim board into the wall at the studs. Position the boards approximately a quarter of the length from the surface and in the bottom of the louvered doors, and use a carpenter’s level to ensure they are even.

Stand the louvered doors against the wall. Mark the attached louvered doors in which they rest from the trim board on the wall, and drill starter holes at the marks for screws. Screw the louvered door headboard securely to the wall on top and bottom trim boards. Dab a bit of paint on the screws to camouflage them.