Thursday, February 11, 2010

Free {repurposed} curtains


We haven't had "real" curtains in our master bedroom, well, ever. I've been working on decorating the bedroom after 4 years of living here, and it's coming along slowly. I painted the room from dusty pink to a nice brown, I painted a CL dresser, we had already bought some Shabby Chic Target furniture from CL, and I bought a lovely duvet cover (have yet to get the comforter, but who am I to be picky?). Everything is quite plain. I got to looking at the naked windows, bemoaning the fact that I don't have a budget to buy ANY supplies right now. Well, I was reading on the Nesting Place about her Lessons Learned from Houses Past, and she was talking about how back in the day she used Kmart bedsheets to make her living room curtains. Inspiration! I checked the closets for any extra sheets, but realized that I had already donated them to our Community Services at our church. Bummer.

After moping around for a while, I walked by the dining room and stopped dead in my tracks.

The tablecloth.

This tablecloth was given to me by my MIL, who bought it at goodwill or something. It's served us well. It's a lovely color of green with some decorative trim type stuff. But it's a solid color. We have a vespers service at our house every Friday night, which includes food for about 15-20 young adults. Solid tablecloths are not my friend. This poor little lovely had grease stains here and there, but I loved the color, so I kept using it. But now I grabbed it off of the table and ran upstairs to the sewing room. Before I could change my mind, I folded it in half and cut it.

Then I folded the raw edge over and over once more to create the rod pocket
I knew that these would not be long enough to do panels, so I decided to make them a swaggy valance thing. For the lift-up tie things (love all my terminology?) I used scraps of cavas left over from my living room curtains. I just cut them into strips, sewed up the long sides to make a tube, then turned the tubes inside out.
I then pressed it down to create crisp edges.
Then I sewed the short sides together to make a loop.
I slipped them over the curtain rod, and voila! New curtain-swaggy-valance thingies.
Oh, and there's another one on the other side of the bed, but that is my husband's side, and it has socks all over the floor. Thought I'd spare you that.

Lesson learned: You can pretty much always find something to repurpose in your house. My curtains were free, and I couldn't be more pleased with the result!


Linking up to Transformation Thursday at

The Shabby Chic Cottage

And



DIY Day @ ASPTL




10 comments:

Prior said...

Really cool. Good re purpose! Lezlee

Frugal Home Designs said...

Gotta love when you can repurpose something. I love that color green.

As for the magnetic paint. I used 3/4 of that quart on my spot 3X5, I think maybe 7 coats. I got some extra strong magnets from Joanns and they hold really well. I think it would have been stronger if my walls weren't textured. If I had to do it again I think I would have bought a really thin piece of plywood or luan then attached that to the wall. My friend did this in her son's room without texture and she only had to do 2 coats. Hope that helps. Thanks for visiting.

gail@My Repurposed Life said...

Fawn... great job on the valance! Looks like you might fly by the seat of your pants! :)
magnetic paint... have used it once. It takes a LOT of coats or very strong magnets. It suggests you roll it, I didn't want to roll it because rolling (in my opinion) wastes too much paint. I used a foam brush. I used it on an old farmhouse window screen frame in which I attached a thin lauan piece of plywood.
thanks for visiting my blog and leaving a comment about the canvas I put on my chair.
have a great weekend!
gail

Valley Girl said...

Lady...you rock.

Magic Brush said...

Ha! You could have showed the socks on the floor... I would have felt normal!

Love the curtain!

frillsfluffandtrucks said...

What a great pop of color!

~ Sarah

Jennifer {Studio JRU} said...

Fantastic transformation! They look great... wonderful job! :)

Kristy said...

Great idea - I love it when I'm walking around my house and see something I've had forever in a new way!

Thanks for visiting me!

CaraM said...

OMG - I posted the same thing today! Great minds think alike :)

Sarah AKA The Thriftress said...

Great idea. I keep reminding myself to look at things differently. You did it!

thanks for visiting and commenting on my blog!

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