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fruitloops115
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Name: Daryl and Thelma
Interests: Photography, Scrapbooking, Being Married, Kids, People
Expertise: The Man: Resource and information specialist @ Dutch Valley Food Distributers
The Wife: Domestic household decontaminator
Occupation: www.darylmusserphotography.com
Message: message meEmail: email me
Website: visit my website
Member Since:
1/14/2005
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| So these last few days I have been inspired to actually work on some of my window treatments in this house. Most of the windows got new mini blinds for the house to be put on the market, so the windows are covered at least. I am going to eventually switch out most/all of the mini blinds, but for now they are ok, and it's something I can work on very very gradually.
The office/living area in the back of the house was the only room that didn't get those new blinds.It did really need something, since on the one side was a huge glass sliding door, wherein at night, anyone who walks around the house can see straight in to Daryl and I at work. The other end of the office has high windows, circa 1960 or so. you know the type-near the ceiling, but since Daryl is tall, he can see straight into the neighbors kitchen And because they have nothing on their back patio door, he's seen the neighber in her pj's in the morning. Ok. time for blinds on those windows.
I have been looking, perusing, scanning the internet, for just the right thing for these windows, and the right color to go w/ my uniquely green walls. It's been a long search, it always takes me awhile to think about these things, and then find the perfect thing for the right (lowest) price. So I've been looking and looking, trying to get a feel for what I am visualizing in my head, then randomly the other day I was at Target and there was a set of drapes, for very inexpensive price compared to most I looked at online. On a whim I bought them, brought them home, hung them up, and now I have my drapes. After all that searching. Target. Who knew.
Well, today I went to work, got everything, ironed and hung properly and here are the results of my labor! Finally one room is pretty much complete!
This is the treatment for the big huge glass sliding door.
Can I brag a bit?? Just a little? Total cost for that whole ensemble--double rod, everything: Approx. $85!!
The rod I had priced at Pottery Barn for $100, cuz my door is so wide, and I wanted a double rod. I wanted to be able to hang thick curtains, for privacy, and thin curtains to let in sunlight, but cut down on the sun's heat. So I was a little disheartened how much rods that big cost. One day I randomly stopped at PB, and whaddya know, curtain rod sale!! Yep, $39!
The curtain sheers? Target. 2 for $9.
Fun metal loops to hang the sheers? approx. $10.
And the chocolate brown drapes with grommet tops?? 2 panels for $25 at Target!!! Target is my new best friend! At pottery barn drapes like that are at least 20-30 for just one panel!
They were a little high water-ish, so I added the fun strip of flowered fabric I found in my closet. I think it adds just the right amount of fun pop.
So there is my window treatments on a budget!
I have been tossing around the idea of making something for the
high windows on the other side. Since they are so short and wide, I will have to pay for
alot of length that I don't need. I had found some in the IKEA cataloge
that I loved, but when we were at the store the other week, they were
out of stock.
After waffeling around for long enough, today I finally made Roman Shades. I have never made them before and I had no idea they were SO simple! wow. I'm almost embarrassed that I've actually paid money for something so easy to make.
Here is my messy little nook. I tossed around the idea of brown for these, but somehow it just didn't go. I had a white drape and a brown drape, and I would hang them up at the door, then at the window....you get the idea. So, the big door looked better with chocolate brown framing it, but these high windows needed just white.
People on Facebook requested a little tutorial, so here goes:
This is straight off an extra Roman Shade I had around from Pottery Barn. For as simple as the construction is, it's almost scandolous what they charge for their Roman Shades.
For fabric, I used a white Drapery Panel I dug out of PB's clearance bin. That was prly my biggest goof of this project as I could have prly gotten something cheaper at Joanne's w/ a coupon. These windows didn't need much fabric at all!
Since I used a panel that was almost perfectly the same width as my window I didn not need to hem anything. In fact, I didn't use my sewing machine at all. If you use unhemmed fabric, I doubt you need a machine either. If you use lining you don't even need a machine. Pottery Barns are lined and have no sewing except the hem along the bottom edge. you simply lay your lining on top of your main fabric and treat it as one piece.
So here's the list of goods--all available at Joannes, except for the wood.
Supply Checklist:
Joannes:
Fabric-or drape.
1 package of round screw eyes per drape.
1 package of L-shaped brackets per drape. For hanging.
1 package of plastic rings per drape.
1 package of 1/16 cord string.
1 package of cord cleat. For mounting alongside the drape to wind the cord around to keep it in the "up" position.
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Home Depot (they have these cool little self-cutting station, where you can cut wood to the size you need! Perfect!0
1 flat piece, approx. 1" wide, for the bottom hem. Width of shade minus about 1/2 inch.
1 1/2 inch square piece, for the top part. Width of shade
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Gear:
Measuring stuff--tape measure, yardstick, measuring tape. whatever.
Scissors. Obviously.
Staple gun. and Staples.
Screw Driver-optional, but helps w/ hanging.
First determine the amount of fabric needed, measuring the inside of your window. I am not a rocket scientist and do not have any fancy formulas for how much you need. I just kinda measure and add a bit for this or that. I think online there would be detailed explanations of how to measure exactly how much you need. Basically, the inside measurement of your window, plus extra length on the top to wrap around 3 sides of the square piece of wood--2 or so inches. On the sides add extra for the hem if needed, and on the bottom add enough for a hem that will accomodate the width of your flat piece of wood.
If your fabric is not a hemmed drape, you would first hem the bottom, prly a two inch hem, so there is a pocket to slide your flat piece of wood into.
Then fold your sides in to the desired width. If you are using unhemmed fabric, fold twice. And press press press.
Obviously, my drape was about 2" too wide on both sides
Along the bottom side, over the area where you slid the board in, Slip stitch the side fast, so your board doesn't slide out ever.
Now that three of your sides are hemmed it's time for the fun part, figuering out where to sew all your rings.
Pottery Barn's curtain had 4 rows of 3 rings. Since my curtain was wide and short, I did 2 rows of 4 rings. They were prly 14 inches apart from each other horizontally, and 11 inches apart vertically.
Again. No rocket scientest formula here. I just kinda figured. I think Martha Stewart would have detailed instructions somewhere on her site They just all need to be same exact distance apart. And you don't need any row of rings at the top, since that is where your board will go.
Then comes the fun part. Sewing all those little rings snuggly in place.
The ones along the bottom get stiched right at the top part of your hem accomodating the piece of wood. Sorry. Bad bad pics.
 
Once you are all done stiching on your rings, it's time for your little square piece of wood. Fold and iron about a half inch of the top down. Then have your husband staple it all down to the square of wood. Or you can too. No matter.
then comes the fun part!! Stringing the string through all the loops--oh wait. I forgot! You need to screw in your round eye screws, into the wood.
Same distance apart as your rows of loops. Same side of the square as the staples are on. These rings will point down when the curtain is hung.
NOW. the fun part.
 
This part is super hard to explain. Again I didn't measure the string. Just threaded it through the loops along the top, down the appropriate vertical row of plastic rings, and tied it to the bottom ring on the board-containing hem. So easy. Then I cut the other end off the spool at the length I wished my cord to be. You do a string for each row of vertical rings.
Using a lighter, I melted the ends of the string so that they wouldn't fray too much. To keep the strings all together on the cord part of it, I put a knot every so often, then threaded on the cord end, and the blind is ready to go!!
Seriously, this took me only about as long as my baby's nap. It would have taken longer if I would have had to hem things.
So you are ready to hang. You can kinda see on the left picture, how the fabric will wrap around all sides of the square board before it hangs straight down. Again, hard to explain. The L-shaped braket is also attached to the side of the board with the staples and round screws, then it is ready to fit into your window. It might take a bit to figure out which way the bracket needs to go to work with your window, but as long as those little round things are pointed down, and the fabric is hanging straight down in the front, you are good to go!
Then you need to attach your cord cleat to you can have the shade raised sometimes. You can also buy those ventian blind type catchy things, if you choose, but that prly will complicate the string threading process. Pottery Barn's don't even have them!
Wrap the cord around the cleat to keep it in the raised position.
So happy! Curtains for my office!
Sorry if this tutorial is confusing. I am not a teacher
Cost-wise:
It was prly about $10 per shade, for the hardware.
$5 for the wood.
The drape was $25 on sale, so I used about $10 worth of it for each of the shades. I could have done SO much better pricewise if I would have just gotten fabric and used a coupon, but oh well. water over the dam.
That comes to $25 a shade....not too shabby for a custom fit window treatment
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| Wow, it has been much much much too long that I have updated. But then again, it has been much too long that we've had an evening just us 3 at home, not running off to work on the house. Oh yes. The house. It's ours! We had closing, everything went so SO smoothly it feels a bit erie. Like, that was a little too easy. But yes. we were able to close earlier then we originally thot, and after hours and hours of working at the house. Tile and Carpet going in the night before, and day of, moving. We are here, the work is done. There is a ton of stuff to still find homes for/rearrange, scuffs to touch up, etc. But it is SUCH a relief to be here and have it all behind us.
Moving day and subsequent several days before were exhausting/packing/cleaning/hauling/unpacking. I was grateful for my mom, sister and mom-in-law who were here faithfully from Thursday on. We had much help from friends, but it does come to a place where YOU have to put stuff away, cuz only you know how you want it. For the most part tho, it's almost done. I will be decorating for awhile, decidinghow I want my walls to be. But I'm kinda like that, I like to take a long time deciding stuff. It's like I have to get the feel for the walls first.
Anyway. I have a few pics. Here is the outside area we have been focusing on. The pics don't even do it justice really. But there is this flagstone patio outside our back door and glass sliding door in our office/family room. It's okay, except there was this HUGE massive stump there, and everything, the patio and driving slanted steeply up to it. Very very messy looking. Plus our garage w/ it's mossy gray asbestos siding and door stuck in the "up" position didn't really help the looks of anything. And this is what you see when you drive in the driveway.
The "before" shot.
After a bunch of grunt working, lifting the flagstones and stacking them aside. breaking up the driveway, we had the stump removed, and that improved that area by like, 100 percent. Then, Daryl's brother repainted the garage, and my brothers, on moving day, put in a new garage door. Can we say transformation?
Here's the garage door in the "down" position. Little clorox clean-up anyone?
The new back area. We are working on putting the flagstone back down but don't have near enough. It will do until the spring when we fulfill our dream of concreteing the area. It's nice to have family members who know how to do these kinds of things, since we are not construction savvy in the least. To say the least. we are excited with the facelift going on here. It's not perfect, but it sure is easier on the eyes this way.
Our back door. The glass doors go into our office area. This area is def. a work in progress. I have a feeling we will spend many evening hours out there when it is all completed.
Here is another small project area. This is the downstairs bathroom. It is quite tiny. I stood in the shower to take this picture. The walls were a dirty cream color, the linoleum, something lost in the 70's. Just a dark dirty little room.
I tried to paint the walls white, but it only served to make the 70's era tile look even grungier. Then one night in bed, inspiration struck to try deep orange. And I love it! It give the drab green tile some updated zing! Got some wood at Lowes and put shelves in above the toilet. Well, I didn't per se. It was more my MIL manning the screw gun, who put them in. They are another favorite of this room for me. A new light fixture and updated faucet complete this makeover. Oh no, wait. The tile floor was the crowning point. We put tile inside the glass doors and on into the bathroom. We were glad for a friend from Daryl's work, who worked in flooring at one point, installed it for us.
And now, this is the room that took hours and hours and hours-soaked up more time and more paint then I ever dreamed possible for one silly room. It was deep dark paneling.
This pic is on a good day:  Just a very dark drab room, complete with the old motel-esque curtains. And urinated-upon by pets, carpet.
Here we are in transition:. The primer. The fireplace is popping already.
So happy here to actually be taping off for color!! After hours and hours of priming, painting trim, painting ceiling and those insufferable beams--which look amazing in their new esspresso brown color.
So very happy for friends who drop and and help slave away. Such a blessing they are!
Oh, and this is the green! It comes out looking SO flourescent on pictures. There is no way to get a shot of it how it looks in real life. It is a spring green. I didn't want anything w/ grey/sage in it, so brilliant green it is. I love how it turned out!
and cheers to my baby-o. Such a little trooper through this whole crazy ordeal. I couldn't have ask for a better baby. I must go kiss her now.
And Oh-la. Finished as we know it! The closet doors still need to be put back on. And a shelf put up. And something done on the windows.
Oh and here's moving day craziness. Now do you know why I hate moving?
I need to figure out what to do above my fireplace. For now that pic and plant, but this is def. not the finished product. Any ideas?
Oh and here's the tile. They were here until 11 the night they installed it!
here's my favorite part of the re-do. The built-in shelves and cabinet. We painted the back of it the same brown as the beams. I love how it sets off the plants. I'm kinda going botanical in my decor, I think.
Once we moved. I put Abbi back to work at editing. No time to waste!
So anyway, those are the projects we've been working on. I will share pics of the rest of the house at a later date, when i have it more organinzed and decorated.
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| So a friend told us about a good carpet installation deal that Home
Depot has going right now. Since we are planning to recarpet the one
room in our house, and since we were in Lancaster last night, we
stopped in to check out their selection and to kinda get a price range
as to what we can expect to spend.
Quick math: so our room is 16X20, which translates to 320 (ish) square
feet. So the price is marked per square yard. A quick division of 320
by 3 and we were thinking we needed 100 (ish) square yards. Oh my. most
of the carpet was in the range of 24-39 a square yard, with a very few
cheap feeling selections at 17. Talk about sticker shock!!! Quick head
calculations and we were thinking we are going to have to spend a
couple thousand just to carpet that one room!! way way WAY more then we
had been calculating.
We left rather disheartened, feeling very very VERY poor, and on the
way home tried to do some math w/ our approximate calculations for the
few projects we wanted to do before move-in...trying to readjust our
budgeted amts. so that we could still afford the new carpet.
Ans so we drove on in morose silence wondering how anyone can ever
afford to recarpet a whole house...and then a lightbulb popped on in my
head. Hello. there are not 3 square ft. in a square yard!!!! There are
9!
yeah.
maybe we can get new carpet after all. | | |
| Hi, From our house to yours.
First off: Happy Fourth! Isn't this a fun holiday? picnics, fireworks, time w/ family/friends. Always fun.
Going to get together with friends tonight. I made some cupcakes. Felt all HomeEckyBecky baking and decorating things.
In other news, the resident baby continues to grow and change. Sometimes it's subtle and sometimes it seems to happen before your very eyes. This week for example, she really got the hang of sitting. And loves it! but now she refuses to be in any sort of reclining position whatsoever. She will squeal and shriek and stretch her little arms, and try with all her might to get vertical if she is not suited with her position. She also whines/shrieks if something doesn't go as she plans, or if she's bored or tired. Not so much just crying when she's hungry, in pain, sleepy, etc. anymore.
She is a little gobbler and will eat preatty much anything that is put into her mouth. How about some green beans in a nasty shade of green? yum! I must feed her more food on a regular basis, it's just hard for me to remember. and hard to believe she is ready for it already!
This week, Grandma Vera got a pool for the day. Here is Abbi's adoring cousin Alex. He just loves her. He just become a big brother today!! We are so excited that Shannon finally had a baby girl. Now Abbi has her first girl cousin! Her name is Riley Paige. Born this morning on this, July 4rth. What a fun birthday to have. Better then Christmas, I think.
And now this:
An words of wisdom for getting started w/ cloth diapering?? I bought a few very gently used ones off Craigslist, just to get the feel for it. These are BumGenius. I like them ok, but the whole thing of poop on cloth is just a bit much to get used to. I'm thinking once this whole moving/new house project is behind us, I might try to be more diligent with it.
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