A Little Upgrade

I would say our favorite room in our house, by far, is the hearth room. It's basically a den right off the kitchen where we eat, hang out, watch TV. We spend more time there than in other place in our house. But since we moved in, it's been a little...bland. Brown table, brown walls, brown sofa, brown chair, brown carpet, brown tile. You get the picture. Oh...and here's a picture:


I knew I needed some fun, patterned drapes to give the room a little color, but after looking on the Internet and in stores for the past several months, I learned that either I was going to have to settle for something that wasn't super my style or shell out hundreds of dollars to get the style and length I wanted. So...on to Plan B!

Our hearth room has four large windows, so I had to get a little creative. No curtain rod was going across the whole wall, and I didn't want to pay to curtain each window. So...with a little help from home bloggers like The Nester and Shannon at Bless Our Nest, I came up with a plan. A very easy, no-sew, get it done in about 30 minute plan.

So, for under $65 (including the fabric, iron pieces, rings, and curtain tape) I think what I did turned out pretty good. In the future I may find some fabric with more colors in it, but since a lot of home decor fabric can run from $20 to $40 a yard and I found this on sale for $6.99 a yard, I love it!

And just because...here's how I did it. Clearly I am reaching for blogging topics. Like I said, I didn't come up with the idea. But I sure do like it.

-I needed about 6 yards of fabric...3 yards for each window. Just for the record, you can't buy three yards and cut it in half. Not that I would have tried such a foolish thing.


-I got my iron pieces at Hobby Lobby. I think they are supposed to be coat and key racks, but they work.

-Grab some curtain rings (sold pretty much everywhere) and some adhesive tape (I used permanent and non-permanent) from the fabric store.


1. Cut your fabric in half so you have 3 yards and 3 yards. I asked them to do it at the fabric store, but they said they couldn't. Go figure.

2. Take your first piece, iron out the seam down the middle. Now you have your basic "curtain" shape.

3. Lay your fabric across the ironing board so you have the top edge in front of you. Fold about 1 to 2 inches down, ironing to create your hem at the top.


4. Open up your hem, add your adhesive tape, and fold it back over, pressing firmly as you go.





5. Now, you are pretty much done. Seriously. Time to add your ring clips. As I learned from the "professionals," before you clip the sides fold your fabric in (see the picture). That way, you don't have to hem the sides but they won't show when you hang them.


6. Once you have your clips on (I used five because my iron piece had 5 hooks), go ahead and hang that baby up there. Rearrange and fluff as necessary.






7. I used removable fabric tape to hem the bottom, and then I let the fabric kind of "pool" on the floor. But you can do whatever you want. They are your drapes.


8. Repeat.

I am very happy with the way my "drapes" turned out...especially for the price. Now I can afford to decorate the rest of the room too!