How to line drapes (with what you have)

Hello to you all! I have a fun little project for you today – the afters aren’t anything earth-shattering, but it’s one of those to-do items I’ve had on the list (in my head) forever. And I did it without spending any money!

I mentioned earlier this week that I’m going room by room in the house decluttering (and cleaning). It’s taking me a long time. Eons. I don’t see an end in sight. Help. me. I have our bedroom and bathroom (and I’m ignoring our closet like usual) and then I’ll move on to the other floors. Working my way down sounded like a good idea when I was all gung ho about this idea weeks ago.

Anyway, part of the reason it’s taking so long is because I’m taking care of little (and huge) projects along the way. I try to ignore them but then I start twitching and I can’t concentrate and the annoying voice in my head goes “Oh it won’t take long, just do it!”

So I do. This is one of those. Our drapes in the loft/playroom/craft room have been hanging for a couple years, but they’ve really been pieces of fabric hanging, not drapes:

It’s what I do. ;) It’s not the first time I’ve done this. If you don’t mess with the drapes you can’t tell too much. It depends on how much light pours in the window. These are a linen-like fabric so very light and sheer and they were looking kind of awful not being lined. Did anyone ever notice it? I doubt it. But it’s something that was bugging me.

So I went to my fabric stash for some lining. I went through all of it a few weeks ago and knew I had some bigger pieces. Well…I had two that were about a foot too short and nothing else that worked. And at this point I’m ready to do this thing so I’m racking my brain trying to think of what I could use.

I was about to just save it for another day (a non no-spend month day) when a light bulb idea hit me. (LIGHT. BULB. Name that movie.) I knew we had an extra set of cream sheets for our king-sized bed that we haven’t used in a long time. We have two sets we rotate and this was a cheap extra set we never use.

So I threw the flat sheet on the floor and realized if I cut it down the middle it would totally work. SCORE! I’ve seen this done a million times so it’s certainly nothing new, but it worked for me since I’m not spending on decor/DIY this month.

I figured I’d give you a quick how-to-line-drapes tutorial – but keep in mind I’m not a GREAT sewer. (Seamstress?) I just do things they way they work for me and they’re not perfect.

The big thing here – you need to lay your fabric with the print side down. If you’re doing a pillow, both printed sides need to face each other. When you’re done you’ll pull it back inside out so the good sides are out. This hides your seam:

I don’t pin the whole thing to start – just the top. I get that where I want it and pin it, then sew that part first:

Speaking of sewing. Do not be afraid. This is your friend:

I promise, if I can sew, you can sew. I’m not good at sewing. Not a great sewer-of-straight-lines. But the thing is, no one will notice your lines aren’t straight. YOU won’t notice. (Unless you’re sewing something with vertical stripes and in that case good luck to you my friend.)

Half the battle is learning how to get the machine threaded and it’s not hard. It shows you how to do it right on the machine and takes about a minute.

Then you sew. Like a boss:

I love hemming tape, and for years I used just that. But we have animals and I found I needed to throw stuff in the washer occasionally. The hemming tape will actually hold up for a wash or two, but after that not so much. And honestly? Sewing may even be faster than hemming with tape and an iron. Once you get going it’s super fast.

You really want your lining to be slightly smaller than your fabric, so at the end you can iron the edges over so you can’t see the lining. Does that makes sense? You want the printed fabric to be seen from the side, not the lining. (I kind of help that along with the way I hang them too.)

The ironing afterwards took longer than sewing each panel, no lie:

Here’s an idea of the different the lining makes. It makes them less see through, yes (you can get black out lining from the fabric store) but it also makes them fuller and they hang prettier:

Wimpy on the right, lined on the left.

Since I was at it, I took care of another quick little project. You can see in the pic above that the bamboo shades were hanging inside the window. I’m obsessed with getting as much natural light in this house as I can so I moved them up.

They now hang on the wall above the window:

It’s a little thing but it all looks so much better to me!:

I use the little clips to hang my drapes but hate seeing them, so I use this trick to hide them from view. It gives your drapes the look of pleated ones (that are way over my head).

This room is way in between decor-wise, but at least for now it’s decrapified and clean. And the window looks nice. :)

The “create” is coming down next. I think I need a break from words on my walls. ;)

So do you know how to sew? Have you ever used sheets to line drapes? I use sheets from Goodwill for my spray paint “tarps” occasionally – but I may need to start looking for more to use as lining. After a good wash of course. :)        

**You can see more about my DIY craft table here.

**The fabric is called Spring Vine Opal from P. Kaufmann.

A private window

Hey hey laaaaadies! (And men. Hello Dad!) How are you this fine Thursday? Today I’m sharing a super simple project that solved an age-old problem for us.

See, we live in a neighborhood. Like, a real, suburban neighborhood with houses next to us. (That gives some people the shivers, I know.) Our bathroom window is one of those that doesn’t open. (And I still don’t understand why. Moisture issues I think? But wouldn’t it be better to be able to open it and let moisture out?) Deep questions people.

So this window has been a thorn in our side for going on nine years now. Of course we love the natural light, it’s great, cause the other light in that bathroom stinks. But at night I feel like I’m in a fishbowl – not so much because of our neighbors, but because houses across the street can see in.

Now, who knows if they can really see in, it’s not a short distance. But at night when I don’t want to be seen, I feel like I can be seen, so there’s lots of ducking and rolling. OK, just ducking – but I do it without even realizing anymore.

I know I could do window treatments, but I don’t feel like they look right there. And we have had blinds, but you have to climb into the tub to put them down:

See? Neighbors. No, I can’t reach out and touch them, it just looks like it.

Years ago I was looking for a solution to cover the glass on our pantry door:

I wanted something that would hide the food but would also let some light through (I installed rope lights around the inside of the pantry door).

So a few of you suggested regular clear contact paper and it worked like a charm. It was a total pain in the butt to install on those window panes, but it works PERFECTLY. (I shared how I did that here.)

There is window vinyl you can buy at the hardware store, but it is a.) expensive and b.) not always the prettiest. This regular old contact paper was a few bucks for a HUGE roll and will last me a very long time:

So anyway, I decided to use it on the bathroom window. Thing is, it wasn’t wide enough. To make it work I decided to cut it in three horizontal strips to kind of match up with the window panes. I just held it up and marked with a pencil where I needed to cut, then laid it down on the floor and used a steady hand and scissors:

Excuse me. A steady hand and scissors:

:)

I was going to try cutting it with my paper cutter to get a nice clean cut, but the piece I needed was much longer than the cutter. The lines aren’t perfect doing it with scissors but thankfully you really can’t tell.

It’s super easy to install this stuff – the trick is getting it on there right when you start. Just spray the window with water:

And if you’re smarter than me, wash the window first. I ain’t got time for that. ;)

Don’t be stingy with the water. Spray it on good. Then tear a bit of the paper off the end of the contact paper:

And line it up and push it on, over the watery glass:

Then you can start peeling the rest of the paper off the back and smoothing it out with  your hand as you go across the window. I thought it might be a pain to get it straight but it went on perfectly.

This is one of those rare projects that I thought would be easy and it was. Usually when those thoughts go through my head I’m in trouble. 

When the contact paper is on the window, you’ll freak out a little and curse me and yell hey Sarah I thought you said this was easy, this looks like crap!!

Relax. You’ll have bubbles, lots of them:

You’ll need something with a straight edge to smooth them out:

I just use a pan scraper. Just make sure it’s got a clean edge with no raggedy things that can tear or scratch the contact paper/vinyl.

Just smooth them out – this part takes the longest, but it’s not bad. This is why you want a wet window, so you can easily push all those bubbles out from underneath.

I installed three horizontally just because I figured vertically might look jail-like. :) It turned out better than I even expected – it still lets all the light through and I can walk around in my bathroom after a shower without ducking.

And everyone is thankful for that, just saying:

I took the old blinds down and that actually lets even a little more light in.

If you’ve ever tried to take a picture of a window during the day, you know its nearly impossible, so forgive me that you can’t see more detail.

Here’s a before and after just to give you an idea:

 

Sometimes it truly is the little things that make such a big difference. My husband was SO excited about this small change, I don’t know why we waited so dang long to do it!!

Here it is at night, so you can get a better view of how it looks:

A private window, for pennies. Can’t beat it! I still have a TON of this stuff left, I’m on the look out for other projects.

Do you have a window that lets in light but you still want covered? This would be PERFECT for side lights by a front door, or maybe even glass in a door? (Allison put this over a window by her front door and it worked GREAT.) If we ever add glass to our front door I’ll be doing something like this.

I bet it would look great if you have glass doors on your kitchen cabinets too. You know, for those cabinets that aren’t perfectly pretty inside?

Outside mount bamboo shades

Hello hello! I’m back today to share a quick DIY project and a couple new tools I’ve started using lately. It’s been Christmas decor 24/7 around here and I gotta be honest, it was great to get something off the DIY list and use a tool for a change. (Insert tool man (woman?) grunt here.)

If you’ve read for a while you know I’m a lover of bamboo shades. Over the years I’ve switched over from our blinds to the bamboo and I just love them. I think they offer more privacy and light filtering (depending on the kind you get), they let more light in (when you want it) and they are just pretty. :) I told you more about our bamboo shades here.

I mentioned the privacy/light thing, and there are some that are a lot more tightly weaved than others. I recently replaced a couple on our main level that weren’t as tightly woven (less privacy) so I had one of the old ones available to install in our guest room upstairs:

This window has been nekked forever and I always feel bad for our guests who sleep in here. This is easily the brightest room in our house – which I’m sure is just lovely first thing in the morning for those who sleep in here. :)

And yes, the walls are still blue, pink and purple. At least there’s a bed in here, OK?

Because this shade is 72 inches long, for our longer, main level windows, it’s way too long for the upstairs window, which is shorter. This allowed me to do one of my new favorite fixes – hang the shade outside the window instead of inside the window frame.

I gathered my tools:

I did end up needing a drill too, more on that in a bit. If you install a shade inside your window frame, you probably won’t need any anchors – just screws. The framing around the window is enough for the screws to bite into.

And if you decide to do an outside mount, like this one, if you go right above the window you’ll probably catch something. Because my shade is so long, I went way up, and luckily caught a stud up near the ceiling:

I used my stud finder to find out where my studs were. Just for fun, stick one on your husband and let it beep. Hilarious. ;)

Once I knew where I could safely hang the brackets (without them eventually crashing down), I marked where the holes needed to go:

If you like to have extra peace of mind, you can put all four screws in. Anymore I only do two or three and they hold up fine.

You’ll want to drill in with a bit to give yourself a good start for your screw:

This also helps to determine if you’ve hit a stud or not. If the bit goes right through the drywall, you’ve missed the stud and will need an anchor. If not you’ll feel the resistance of the wood as you drill.

Here’s where my first new “tool” comes in – I found this at my True Value months ago and I LOVE IT:

It’s this magnetic arm band thing and you wrap it around your arm with the Velcro. This True Value has an end cap with all this “as seen on TV” stuff on it and this was there. I think it was $20? Twenty bucks of awesome, I tell you what. Especially on jobs like this, I am ALWAYS dropping screws or wing nuts or whatever. This keeps them right where I can reach them and they don’t go anywhere.

And it’s soooo fashionable too, be sure to let all the cool people see you in it:

That’s my attempt at a tough face. Failing.

I have a thing with as seen on TV stuff by the way. I have an odd fascination with all of it. No snuggie here yet. You? :)

Next up, you’ll need to drill your brackets into the wall. For this I used my next new tool, the Master Mechanic Swift Driver Ratcheting Screwdriver (say that three times fast):

The True Value folks sent me one to try out earlier this year and I have thoroughly enjoyed using it. It is SO much easer than a screwdriver people! I actually find it easier to use than a power drill sometimes – it’s hard to get control of a drill at times -- even I still have it skip out and I dent the wall with the bit. Once or ten times.

This one is a great in between the power drill and a screwdriver – you use your hand to just ratchet it so it turns the screw for you. It’s hard to explain so I took a quick video:

 

Master Mechanic is the brand name for True Value and I have at least three tools from this line and love them all. Really pleased. The only thing is I wish this screwdriver was magnetic so the screws stuck on it on like my drill.

It made quick work of putting those brackets up:

I hope you can see from this picture how the brackets are on the wall for an outside mount installation – you want the the metal part that the nut screws on to to be pointing down. Much like an inside mount, but facing out. (For an inside mount I put them sideways.)

Once the brackets are up it’s easy! Just slide your shade on them and use the wing nuts to secure them:

And there you have it – a shade on the window, finally!:

Here’s the thing about hanging window treatments and shades really high – I love doing it because it gives the illusion the window is taller than it is. And I wanted this one high because this particular shade is still pretty thick at the top, even when pulled all the way up. So if it’s hung inside the window frame, it blocks a fair amount of sunlight. This way it doesn’t block any.

But I find that when just drapes are hung SUPER high, like to the ceiling, and the shades (if there are any) are hung lower, it can look kind of off. Like you’re trying to make the window look bigger and you can tell. You shouldn’t be able to tell. ;)

Once I get drapes up here it will really make that window look much taller than it is and will block out even more light for my lovely guests. :)

One more thing off the HUGE to do list, it feels good! The list for just this room is a page long…2013 is the year of the guest room, I can FEEL it.

Are you a bamboo shades person like me? Inside or outside mount? Or are you loving your blinds?

 

I was one of the bloggers selected by True Value to work on the DIY Squad. I have been compensated for my time commitment to the program as well as my writing about my experience. I have also been compensated for the materials needed for my DIY project. However, my opinions are entirely my own and I have not been paid to publish positive comments.

Trimming out the drapes

Well hello! Hope you had a lovely weekend! I got a project done that’s been harassing me for months. Well, not really. It just seemed like the window in the living room that had been nekked forever was mocking me every time I walked by. And the extra fabric I bought six months ago to go on it was yelling at me to JUST GET IT DONE.

Sheesh. Chill out already!!

Anyway.

You might remember when I changed out the drapes in the living room. They absolutely transformed the room and brought it from the dark into the light!

Because I was trying to save some cost on the fabric, I ended up cutting each length of fabric in half and used the halves for the new drapes. (Instead of buying double the yardage, I just bought enough for one window and cut the fabric in half length-wise).

But the skinny skinny panels were starting to look pretty…well, skinny. Wordsmith, I know. ;) I hadn’t even lined them yet, so I waited on that to decide how I wanted to change them up.

I went back to Calico Corners hoping to find something that I could use on each side of the panels to beef them up a bit. I couldn’t find a solid fabric that worked, but I did find a stripe that matched perfectly:

Every color in the stripes is in the fabric and I couldn't believe how well it worked! Although I must say it had me a bit out of my comfort zone. But I wanted to try a little something different so I went with it.

Six months later. ;)

Turns out my DIY craft table in the basement is a PERFECT sewing table! Up till now I’ve been sewing upstairs in the guest room because it has great light. But I use an ironing board and it’s not exactly the best set up.

This worked great!:

I only got enough fabric for one window, knowing that I would cut it into four strips – two for each window. (There were exactly four sets of the stripes across the fabric.)

I thought sewing a straight line along straight lines would be pretty darn easy, but. no.

I’m here to tell you the lines that aren’t straight will NEVER be noticed after all is said and done. I promise. If the straight line eludes you and keeps you from trying to sew, please don’t let it!!

I sewed a strip of the stripe (huh?) on one side of print fabric, then lined them all (with lining I’ve also had forever).

I tried the stripe on the outside first, but liked it on the inside of the windows much better:

All of the colors on the striped fabric were a bit too much at first, so I just tucked some of it behind and clipped it back there with the drapery rings. I was not about to cut them down and resew them. SO not about to.

I absolutely LOVE the bit of contrast along the insides of the drapes:

The dark blue green color pops, and the lighter green beside that kind of disappears in the light coming through the window.

I still can’t believe how perfectly the colors matched!

I wanted to add a little somethin’ to the windows and it turned out better than I had even hoped:

I even notice them more now – that little bit of color made a big difference!

I’ve been changing things up in here over the past year, and there’s still a few more projects in the works. One BIG, one medium one and one kind of easy one. ;)

That’s what I say now anyway.

If you’ve been around long you know I love to look back. Early last year the room was dark with lots of black and red:

Wow, what a difference a year makes!

The room looks completely different now – and the wall color and the sofa haven’t even changed. I’m LOVING all the color in this room now!:

The floors don’t hurt one bit either. ;)

Now I just need to find a stinkin’ rug that doesn’t cost a thousand stinkin’ bucks. I was thinking a large print at first, but now I’m leaning toward something very neutral. The colors in the drapes and accessories are plenty!

Stay tuned for more updates…hopefully it won’t take me another six months. I make no promises.

P.S. I’m honored that someone thought to nominate TDC over at the Apartment Therapy Homies!:

I don’t ask this often, but I would love your vote! You can go here to do just that if you want. :) THANK YOU!

Let there be light!

Well HEY! Thanks for all the kind comments on our new floors! I tell you what -- I am more thrilled with them each day. I swear these floors don’t show anything! I so wish I could say I’m the I-want-to-see-the-dirt-so-I-know-when-to-clean type…but I’m just not. Sorry. ;)

Anyhoo, I told you the new floors have spurred on some new projects. One in particular I wanted to take care of before they moved the furniture back in. It involved the roman shades in the family room, so I wanted to take care of it while the sofa wasn’t in the way.

I showed you here how I’ve fallen in love with bamboo shades. We used to have two-inch blinds throughout the house, and slowly but surely, I transitioned all the windows to bamboo shades instead.

They are SO easy to install:

Over time, I’ve been craving a little more light though. So I decided to try hanging them up higher instead of inside the window. When you install roman shades, you need to decide if you want them hung inside the window frame, or outside:

(source)

I’ve always hung ours inside, but I got the I-need-more-light wild hair and decided to try the outside mount.

I didn’t get photos of the process (because I was trying to get it done before the furniture was moved back in), but it’s pretty easy. You just take the bracket and hang it above the window, instead of inside the window frame:

That pic is looking up underneath the roman shade.

Make SURE that you either use anchors or get your screws into a stud or the header over the window when hanging them. You want to make sure the brackets have a good grip!

I started moving them up and decided everything would need to go up, so I moved the drapes as well. Now everything is hung right up under the crown:

And I have to say, I LOVE it! It raised the bamboo shades about ten inches, so it lets a TON more light in the room.

The only thing I didn’t consider…that the blinds don’t cover the entire window anymore:

Whoops. ;)

In my defense, our upstairs shades have a ton of extra at the bottom, because I buy the 72 inch length for every window. So I just figured I’d have enough extra at the bottom. I don’t. :)

The only other thing that is different is the space between the shades. At the right angle, you can see between them:

Not a big deal, but I like it totally closed off at night. :)

A new set of shades will fix these issues though – I’ll just get wider and longer bamboo shades. I’ll move these upstairs when I have the budget for new ones, but until then, I can deal with these little issues.

I figured the short shades would be hidden by the sofa, and they would have been if I hadn’t decided to move things around a bit. :) When they brought the furniture back in, I had the sofa and IKEA sofa table placed back about a foot. You can see the before on the left, now on the right:

Funny how one foot makes a HUGE difference! To me anyway. I love little changes like that! And you can see the difference in the shades and drapes in these pics too.

We need the extra space in the family room, not in the kitchen, so it works SO much better like this. But now the sofa doesn’t cover the entire window.

No biggie. I’m trying not to develop the heebs at night because of it. ;)

The best part – it made our windows and ceiling feel even taller AND lets in more light…for FREE!

Here’s the evolution of the family room drapes…very early on I went with the tan drapes on tan walls hung immediately over the window, with no blinds at all:

Then I moved on to the DIY drapes with blinds:

I still love those brown drapes!

And then I flipped the drapes and the bamboo obsession started:

And after stealing the dining room drapes and raising everything up, (and OK, a few other changes) here’s where we are today:

Again with the cloudy, rainy day. This needs to shape up for my photos!! ;)

You can’t see the molding I installed around the windows now, but I don’t mind it – I’ll take natural light over that any day! This certainly has me thinking about moving more shades up around the entire house.

See how one thing turns into another around here?

So do you hang ‘em high? It’s an old decor trick that certainly works! I think it works best when the shades and curtains are both hung high – so the window really looks taller. Sometimes I think just hanging the drapes higher can make the window seem even shorter.

P.S. Check out my FAQ page to find out where I find my bamboo roman shades.