Show 'N Tell Tuesday: My No Sew DIY Drapes

SHOW:

***NOTE: this room is still a work in progress!

(I'm thinking some roman shades might look better then the wood blinds too . . . . hmm)

TELL:

Okay so I have been working on drapes for the living room for quite a while now. I have tried about 3 or 4 different things, but it never seemed right. I've also had a hard time deciding what color I wanted to do in this room. I have now decided to do red. I needed drapes that were really long, about 108 inches and you can't go buy drapes that length in a store - at least I never saw any that long. The longest I saw was about 94 inches, which was still not long enough. Even drapes in that length were anywhere from $50 - $150 a panel, and I needed 2 of course. I didn't want to spend that much. Really, if money was no object, I would have some custom made, that's usually what you have to do when you need drapes in such a long length like that. But again, to have something custom made, buy the fabric, and then pay someone to do it - you're talking a few hundred dollars, and maybe even more. So I came up with my own idea. I bought 2 red 84 inch panels ($12 each!!) Then I already had some drop cloth that I purchased from Lowe's ($9.) I had seen on another blog that someone used drop cloth to make drapes. This person did a black border on the bottom of the creme drop cloth. I tried this first, but since our walls are the typical creme color and since this room has carpet rather then the wood floors that's through the rest of the house, it blended in too much. I needed something with a pop of color. Our couch is tan so doing tan or creme drapes was just too blah I thought. So I had my 2 red curtains, the drop cloth, and then I had some wide black ribbon ($5.) To make the drapes the length I needed, I added the drop cloth to the red drapes by using stitch witchery (the stuff you iron on to connect fabrics.) The only thing I can sew is a button on a shirt or something - so I had to do something that didn't require sewing. So I attached the creme drop cloth to each red drape. I used the wide, black ribbon to cover up where the 2 fabrics connected. I also wanted to use the black ribbon to add some contrast - so it served 2 purposes for me. I wanted to use stitch witchery for this too, but it wouldn't really stick against the ribbon very well, so I used some Velcro I had (yes Velcro) and that worked great! So after all of that . . . . Voila, I had my drapes.

I had originally made them so that the border would be on the bottom. I left them like this for about a week. Then I was looking threw a magazine and noticed in a picture that had similar drapes, that they had done the reverse and had the border on the top rather then the bottom. I thought I would try this and I think I like it better. The only thing I is that the creme fabric still blends in with the walls - but it will just have to do for now. One of these days I want to paint this room, and once I do that it will look a lot better. But for now I like these drapes. I also want to change the rod they are on. It's a brushed gold that my parents had, not what I want, but I will use it until I find what I am looking for. I may do this again when spring & summer rolls around. I love the red, but think by the time summer is here I will want a different color. So I might do a green then.

This was not too hard and anyone can do it!! I may have to do it in another room! I also thought this could be done with a shower curtain too! (hmmm . . . project! ha ha)

Here are some pics of the process . . . .

You can see here the length of the drapes when I bought them . . . .

This is how I started, with the border on the bottom. I would have probably kept them this way, but you couldn't see both of them when you walk in because the couch covered up the one on the right side, so I thought switching it to the top allowed the border to be seen on both sides. But what do you guys think? Do you like the border on the top or on the bottom???

Either way I keep them, top or bottom - I also would like to get some shades because I like to have part of the actual window showing rather then the wood blinds all the time. So may try to do that soon too. I need to bring the steamer home from work and steam the drapes to get all of the wrinkles out of them and then work on them a little more to get them to lay a little better.

These drapes may not be EXACTLY what I wanted - but without spending hundreds of dollars and only spending under $40 to do these, I can make them work for a while! Still got more work to do in this room - like a rug, maybe different pillows, a few more accessories, different coffee table, add another picture or something else on the side of the window, etc. But this is one thing I can check off my list . . . . Drapes, check!

Oh & one last pic . . . I'm thinking I may need to do my pillows on the couch like this again - rather then how they are now. I don't know?? I just don't want the room to have on over kill of red everywhere. I had bought a red rug before I had done the red drapes, but ended up taking it back because it was too much red. I'm always changing things and moving things around, as you can see from this pic compared to the ones above.