Playing House: Curtains!

 You know who has curtains?    Grown-ups.

Grown-ups have curtains.  So it was really weird when I finished this project, looked at the room, and it looked like a grown-up's house.

(When in reality, it feels like I'm just "playing house" like any other little kid.)

I also found out that curtains and curtain rods are unnecessarily expensive!
One curtain panel is $25-$30, and of course you usually need two. Then the curtain rod is another $25-$30, so for EACH window, you are looking at $75-$100.

I wasn't seeing any patterns I liked, and all of them were too short for floor-ceiling curtains. So I decided to make my own.
I didn't need anything fancy, and fabric is expensive so I just bought 10 yards of white muslin (basic bulk cotton fabric.) After a 50% off coupon, it was only $50 for four curtain panels.

Do you know how difficult it is to wash, dry, and iron 10 yards of fabric? Imagine 4 king-sized sheets all sewn together and twisting around in your dryer, then trying to iron them!

The actual sewing part was pretty easy. I just cut the fabric to the right lengths, folded over the sides twice, ironed and sewed a straight line. I did a similar process for the top, but tucked under strips of ribbon to be used as "tabs" for the curtain rod to thread through.

Speaking of curtain rods, an inexpensive solution is to use electrical conduit. These sturdy poles are made of aluminum (light, but strong) and come in 10 foot lengths. (If you remember, I use them for tomato cages and supporting the hops.)

They were already silver, but it also had some printing and an odd visual texture. A quick spray paint coat of primer and "brushed nickel" and they matched perfectly. I was torn if painting them would be worth it, but after they were up it really did make a huge difference. I am so glad I did! 

The only problem with using electrical conduit, is it leaves an open end. No fancy finial.

I was looking for solutions and in Pier1 I ran across some fancy drawer pulls on clearance (less than $3 each!). Snatching them up, I knew I could make them work somehow. 

Initially I was just going to glue them on, but then you wouldn't be able to remove them if the curtains ever needed to be taken down. Sooo I had to find another solution. It took me quite a while to figure this one out, but I'm pretty proud of it. Wine corks!

Yep! Here, you can see three wine corks (I only needed three finials because one curtain was right up against a wall in the corner.) I used the artificial corks made out of some sort of foam so they wouldn't crumble like traditional cork. I drilled a hole in the middle, enough for the finial to screw into snug.

Turns out the corks were too big to fit into the end of the pipe, so I took a razor blade and whittled them down so they fit perfectly!

After that was complete, I took some basic curtain rod hangers and installed the rod about 6-8" above and 10-12" outside the window frame. (It's supposed to make the windows look taller and wider.)

Once hung, I marked the curtain length and hemmed the bottom.
FYI, I learned the hard way that you should mark and hem each panel individually rather than "trusting" they are the same length.

Here's the bedroom window:

And a before-and-after of the bathroom!

(I think the window looks bigger, don't you?)

On a completely separate topic, Dear Husband (DH) made his first batch of home-brewed beer! It was an Oatmeal Stout that turned out really good! I might just be able to convince him to be a guest blogger as he brews his second batch.