curtains

A mini master makeover (bedding & curtains in the master bedroom)

04/22/2013 10:17 pm by Allison 19 Comments

Do you ever go through phases with decorating or crafting or whatever? It’s like I get tunnel vision or something. I’ll get on a DIY tangent, or a crafting tangent, or a decorating tangent. Lately I’ve been on a curtains tangent. And a sprucing-up-the-place tangent. I haven’t done many huge DIY projects or crafting lately. I’ve been focusing on just tying up loose ends and sprucing up the place so it feels more cohesive and livable.

I just blew through a master bedroom tangent, in part thanks to my blogging-turned-in-real-life friend Jenn. Jenn is literally the bomb dot com. She texted me a few weeks ago and said she bought a Nate Berkus king sized comforter and shams and didn’t like how they looked in her room and wanted to know if I wanted them.

Um, hello? Seriously, this chick is just so awesome. Love her! So of course I said, “hellz ya!”

I’ve been sporting an 11 year old comforter (don’t tell anyone I said that, mmkay?) and in addition to needing a new comforter, this one is Nate-freaking-Berkus so of course I want it.

Now, back in 2011 I found a fab white duvet from Target for supeh cheap and I blogged about it. Turns out it didn’t really fit the bed very well, so I didn’t keep it for long, but just in case you have been reading for that long and have the worlds best memory, I thought I’d throw that in. Here was my laughable “after” picture with the new duvet.

Yikes. With a double ikes. Seriously. I was going to say my room had seen better days, but unfortunately this was actually an improvement. My poor room is the most neglected in the house. But not anymore! I’m no where near finished at.all. but the bedding did light a fire under me to purchase some sheets that match, grab a few king-sized pillows, and pick up those jumbo shag pillows from the ol’ costco. I also even added some new curtains.

So, let’s talk about the curtains for a minute. Why did I wait so long to put up curtains? Curtains can be inexpensive and will spruce up a room quicker than anything. I should have done this the day we moved in, not three years later. Eye roll.

I found some pretty white nubby curtains from ikea…

…and paired them with two sets of my famous (or are they infamous? wink) DIY curtain rods that I spray painted silver. All in all? Less than thirty bucks. Wham bam thank you ma’am.

And just because I cleaned the heck out of this room and it might be the only time that it will ever be this clean, here’s the rest of the room. It’s coming along. Baby steps, people.

See those dressers? I inherited them from my late grandparents who purchased them in the 1950s. Heirloom, baby. Except back in 2002 when I had no clue what I was doing, I stripped and re-stained them. And they look terrible. They are officially on the to-do list. I can’t justify painting some antique solid-wood mid century furniture though so they will be getting stripped and re-stained again.

Finally I’m no longer embarrassed to leave my door open when we have company over. And I’m still shocked at how much of a difference some curtains, new bedding, and a better furniture arrangement can make in a room.

What’s more fun than an old fashioned before and after comparison? Um, nothing.

And on a side note, last weekend I attended the SNAP blog conference. It was so fun, but for all you non-blogger readers out there who really could care less about reading a blog conference recap post, I’m saving you the torture by not posting one. You are welcome. If you really want to see some pictures from my weekend getaway with my blogging friends, where we played way more than we actually learned, you can visit my instagram feed.

Filed Under: Decorating Tagged With: bedding, curtain rod, curtains, IKEA, Master Bedroom, Nate Berkus, Target

Two hacks in one post (curtains for my boy’s room)

04/02/2013 9:28 pm by Allison 20 Comments

Hiah my friends! I have been doing a little bit of tweaking in my son’s room this past week and am very excited to show you! His poor room has been virtually neglected the past almost-3-years that we’ve lived here. Thank goodness he is a typical boy who could care less what his room looks like. As long as he has his legos and DS, he is a happy camper.

Okay, so his room started like this:

First off, I ditched the shelf below his window almost immediately. It’s now on the other side of the room. And just for a refresher, here’s the post I wrote about all his bedding.

I’ll just go ahead and start with the “after” and then share the deets. I hung some curtains in his room and I still can’t believe what a huge difference it made.

I’ll let you do a quick double-take now. Yes, I am just as shocked with the before and after.

I didn’t even paint his walls or anything. Just curtains. And the room looks like 10 thousand percent better. Wow.

I love with a capital L these curtains. They are actually navy/white pinstripe twin bedsheets that I found at Target in the clearance section a few weeks ago. All I did was add a 1″ wide orange grosgrain piece of ribbon down the inner edge of either panel.

The stripe compliments the stripe on the bedding, but because it’s such a narrow pinstripe it doesn’t compete with the bedding. To turn the flat sheet into a curtain I sewed the orange ribbon down the side and stuck a curtain rod through the top of the sheet (I had to seam rip some stitching to open it up on either side).

Then I just hung the rod so that the curtain would barely touch the floor – no hemming or anything. So easy!

Now for the really fun part! I totally did an ikea hack to hang the curtan. I was going to make another one of my custom $2 curtain rods but as luck would have it I came across two ikea “bygel” kitchen rails in my stash. I had them in my office before Ben and I did one of our many office flip-flops.

The wheels started turning and I thought to myself, “Self, these look like they could be awesome cheap curtain rods!” I tested them out and sure enough, they were long enough and the fabric fit on them.

All I had to do was screw them into the wall with the curtain already attached, and voila! instant curtain rods.

I am just giddy at how well they worked. And if you can even believe it, they are only $2.99 at ikea and come in two different lengths (these are the shorter 21″ length).

I guess you’d say this post is a double hack. I hacked some twin bedsheets into curtains, and I hacked two kitchen storage rails into curtain rods. I’m ~~sexy~~ thrifty and I know it.

And for your pinning pleasure:

I have been working like crazy on this house lately and I can’t wait to get down to business and show you everything I’ve done! If you’ve done any crazy ikea hacks lately or have made some curtains, share your post with us in the comments section!

Filed Under: Decorating, For kids, Sewing, Tips & Tricks Tagged With: Boy bedroom, Boy room, curtain rod, curtains, IKEA, ikea hack

Like, OMG. The piano room actually has curtains now?!

01/03/2012 10:53 pm by Allison 31 Comments

Four long months ago I proclaimed I was going to hang curtains in the piano room.

Sounded simple enough. Hell, I already had the curtains. How long could hanging two curtain panels really take?

I tried them out by hanging them on the wall with some tacks…

They were waiting for Noah’s Flood, so I tested out some gray fabric I picked up at ikea. Yup, this little plan I hatched was going to work out perfectly.

I even added this little curtain project to my list of 24 projects I should have finished by now (project #6) {aka I’m a huge procrastinator}.

So why is it freaking January 2012 and I’m just now mentioning them again?

Because of my life mantra – Nothing I do is as easy as it should be.

Really, there were only two tasks to complete this little should-only-take-an-hour-or-so Project: 1) buy and hang two curtain rods, & 2) attach fabric to the bottom of the curtain panels. NOT THAT HARD, ALLISON. Srsly.

And that’s where things went horribly off track…

First off, the panels were dirty so I carefully read the label and washed them as directed.

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When I pulled them out of the dryer, to my horror the toile fabric SHRUNK. Like, a lot.

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Oh, this is for real, folks. I can’t even make this crap up.

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All FOUR panels shrunk. In a moderate temper tantrum, I threw them on my floor and ignored them for a week or so. But then the curtain bug bit again. There had to be a way to salvage these curtains.

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Yup, I went all Freddy Krueger on them and hacked the lining right out.

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I had originally planned to use only two curtain panels (though I had 4), but once they shrunk to all hell and then I removed the lining, they seemed really sad and thin, so I ended up using two panels per window (I used all 4 panels instead of just 2).

Well, this pretty much screwed me on the gray fabric. I had enough to cover two panels, not four. No biggie… I headed back to ikea to buy another yard.

{Here comes big issue #2 with hanging these dag-gum curtains}

FAIL. Ikea has been sold out of that gray fabric for four freaking months now!

So now they look like this:

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Because of the shrinkage, they are now waiting for an even bigger flood than before. {Maybe I should give up on the ikea fabric and just go get some at the fabric store…}

Well, there has been one semi-good thing to come from all this.

I bought and hung two curtain rods!

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I say “semi-good” because, well, I bought these rods and hung them before my DIY curtain rod was even dreamed up…

If I could go back in time, I’d do one long rod on the windows in the piano room (like the DIY one in the dining room) instead of the two shorter rods. {sigh}

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Eventually I may swap these out for one long one, but for now, these are paid for and hung, so I’m just gonna go with it.

So, now that I’ve been all Debbie-Downer on the curtain rods, let me tell you all about them!

I found the two curtain rods at Wal-Mart for $14 each.

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They are nice rods, but man that $2 conduit pipe rod sure sounds nice right about now…

So anyway, I bought two rods from Wal-Mart…

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…and also two packages of rings with clips ($7 a package).

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I attached the rings the same way I explained here to create a faux pinch pleat.

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That’s pretty much it. After four long months, the rods and curtains are finally hung, but I still can’t check this project off my to-do list because the bottom of the curtains are unfinished.

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It’s all good though. This large randomly placed basket with no use hides the unraveling edge pretty well.

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On a good day, the piano room and entry way are looking pretty good. Not finished, but better than before. (Ben is in a band, so the piano room is usually littered with at least 2-3 guitars, a large amp, a banjo, and his Russian accordion. Yes, I’m married to a musical wiz. I gave up trying to compete years ago. (I play the piano. But, of course, he does that better too!))

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