3.30.2011

Spring inspiration: DIY curtains

Hang on for a day, folks - I'm venturing away from plain ol' photographs to interior design for today's post! (That's a joke, really - I would not call this interior designing. Anyway.) 

I don't know about you, but once the temperature outside is at least 40 degrees, my windows are open. Now I live in an apartment with standard (read: UGLY) mini blinds. These particular ones are slightly broken, super heavy, get dusty (my least favorite chore - trying to dust mini blinds. Maybe that's why I don't do it...), and have fallen down more than a few times. And did I mention these blinds are ugly?

To remedy the problem, I wanted to hang curtains. However, I just didn't have the inspiration for patterns/colors/kinds/etc. Finally last night my hubby and I bought some curtain rods in faith that we could work something out with our living room curtains. This morning, after a cup (or two) of coffee, I vowed to get those darn curtain rods (and curtains!) up myself after seeing a curtain compilation on Design*Sponge

The materials:
  • 2 vintage curtain panels (I got these free from a friend's mom's garage sale... in 2002. Yes, I have been carrying them around for that long. Sometimes it pays to hoard.)
  • 2 curtain rods (from Target)
  • 1 paper punch
  • 1 spool of jute/twine/whatever it's called










The process:

1. Hung the curtain rods; in doing so learned I am semi-ambidextrous when using a screwdriver.

 2. Since the curtains had no pocket to slip the curtain rod into, I came up with an alternate plan: create curtain hooks with the twine!

3. Use the sewn-in "pleats" in the curtain to determine where curtain would fold.


4. Used a hole puncher to make holes in curtain (this only worked because the fabric is a kind of vinyl material - not sure what kind of material it is, but it's great), punching 8 holes total in each panel. 

5. Cut strips of twine to loop through newly punched holes.

6. Once knotted, I slipped the twine loops around so the knot was hidden behind the curtain.

 7. Hung my curtains.

8. Realized I should have used white curtain rods instead of brown. *sigh*

1 comment:

Amanda Drietz said...

Love it sweetie! Especially that you have stashed those curtains for sooo long:) They look lovely!