This isn’t as dramatic as our big laundry room renovation, but let’s talk curtains for a moment. Remember when our bedroom felt completely naked? (Side note: if you haven’t seen “Naked and Afraid,” it’s worth a watch.)
We added frames and hung curtains around the same time, but finishing the curtains took much longer. We wanted white linen-like panels to balance our dark walls and had heard good things about Ikea’s Lenda curtains—their heavier white curtains with a linen-like weave, rather than the thinner breezy styles we’ve used before. After feeling them in person, we were sold.
We paired the panels with substantial curtain rods and large ring hooks from Lowe’s (the same rings we used in Teddy’s room).
They didn’t look great the first time we hung them after washing and drying to allow for shrinkage, which is why we moved on to our frame project and asked you to ignore the curtains while we worked. Once the frames were done, I revisited the curtains and—very slowly—finished them over the course of a month.
The first step was taking each panel down to iron them and remove the tab tops so they could be clipped more cleanly. One of the panels was floppy and folded over when hung—definitely not the look we wanted.
Simply ironing and removing the tabs made a big difference. We also discovered they looked better when they were less spread out. After years of practicing the “high and wide” curtain trick to make windows read larger, it felt unusual to prefer a tighter, narrower hang. But for these panels that approach gave a cleaner, fuller appearance.
The last touch was hemming the bottoms. After a few weeks of being almost finished, I used the sewing machine to create a substantial 4″ hem.
Here they are afterward—so much better.
I’m planning to rehang the curtain rods slightly closer to the windows—nothing a little spackle and paint can’t fix.
One trick I used while rehanging was training the fabric to alternate the loop direction when clipped to the rings: between two rings the fabric swoops out, and between the next two it swoops in. That creates a consistent, drapey shape down the panel that reads as tailored and polished. Our curtains are purely decorative—behind them we have white faux wood blinds for privacy—so the panels stay open and keep their shape.
We’re debating hiring a seamstress to make custom curtains for our office. Custom work won’t be as inexpensive as buying ready-made panels, but we loved the professionally made curtains at the showhouse and met a seamstress through that project. We considered using her for our bedroom, but because white linen-look curtains were easy to source, we’ll save her talents for something less readily available—like office curtains in one of the fabrics below.
We picked up these swatches from our local fabric shop, U-Fab. Each has its own appeal. The patterned options felt a little busy when held up, and while we liked the idea of emerald green or orange to shake up our palette, those fabrics felt heavier and thicker than we expected next to the window.
Our favorite is probably the top-right swatch—the same fabric used for the showhouse master bedroom. It feels slightly anticlimactic to reuse it at home, but it’s comforting to choose a fabric we’ve already vetted and know drapes beautifully.
We haven’t decided yet, so we’ll share an update once we pick one. Sometimes I even think leaving the office windows bare would be a nice look.
We also made a few updates in Clara’s room. Her previous curtains felt too busy against the bold rug and playful raindrop wall, and John didn’t like how the blackout panels clipped behind the lighter panels made everything feel bulky. The old thin rod from our last house was also starting to sag.
They photographed better than they looked in person, so while installing Clara’s new light we tried flipping the panels so the muted side faced the room and removed the blackout liners. The panels immediately felt lighter and less demanding.
I hemmed all four sides of each of the four panels (16 hems total) so the reversed look would appear finished. I worried about how the bold circles might look from the street when closed, but since we close the blinds before closing curtains, that’s not a concern. Without the blackout liners we’re likely to keep the blinds closed when we need darkness and leave the curtains open most of the time.
We also upgraded Clara’s rods to white wood ones from Lowe’s so a dark metal line no longer cuts across the top of the windows—white rods feel much more appropriate for her bright, playful room.
I was waiting for someone to notice the subtle curtain changes in the light post, but nobody mentioned it—probably because we didn’t show them much. Here’s a fuller view. We don’t know if these will be Clara’s forever curtains, but we like them better and they were essentially a zero-dollar update aside from the new rods.
As for length, John prefers floor-length in our bedroom, while a little casual pooling on Clara’s floor suits her room’s playful vibe and chandelier. The great news is that removing the blackout panels hasn’t disrupted Clara’s sleep—she’s still napping well and not waking at sunrise. The white faux-wood blinds do a surprisingly good job of blocking light on their own.
So: lots of hemming, a few new rods, and some curtain decisions still to be made for the office. Now it’s back to laundry room tasks—today we’re re-routing vents, and then drywall is next. In the meantime I’ll daydream about future curtains for the bunk room and try not to glue my fingers together with duct tape.