Elise has been inching back her wake-up time for a couple of months. Before she starts waking with the birds, we thought some blackout curtains for her room were in order.
After a fruitless search for something off-the-shelf, the hunt for fabric to make my own curtains was on. I wanted a small pattern that was fun and youthful, but still neutral (she’s got a lot of color in her room already) and preferably light in color so they wouldn’t overpower the room.
I finally found the perfect pattern on clearance at fabric.com. Youthful, yet sophisticated, check. Neutral, check. Light colored, check. On sale, check!
I had to buy 8.5 yards, so it was important to snag a bargain. This was on sale for $4.78/yd. minus 20 percent, so $3.82/yd., plus another about $30 for the blackout fabric from Jo-Ann, for a total of about $62 for all the fabric. Pretty good for three 100″ panels!
I am not even going to pretend I know the proper way to make lined curtains. I put these together in a sort of unusual way so the two layers could easily be separated in the future for washing (the blackout lining is dry clean only). I basted the layers together at the top and safety pinned down the sides. (Yeah, safety pinned. I’m classy like that.)
Anyway, I like how they sort of blend into the walls and don’t draw attention to themselves. But what’s more important is that on the first night they were up, Elise slept until 8 a.m.! Crazy.
In person, the room seems darker than is represented in this photo. Not movie theater dark, but dark enough to fool a toddler into thinking it’s not time to get up yet. Or that the world outside isn’t so fun and sunny when it’s nap time. I’m thinking we should have done this like two years ago.
p.s. The fabric I used is Michael Miller “Etta” in Camel. The curtain rods are from Target and the curtain ring clips are from Lowe’s (because they were half the price of the ones at Target).
Well done! They’re beautiful in the space. I especially like the gold pattern with the soft green walls.
Thanks! I have such a hard time with curtains, so I’m glad these actually look good after my efforts!