Cutting Curtain Panels To Make More Curtains: a house log
Remember when we cut four curtain panels that we enjoyed from Ikea (which were sadly discontinued) right down the middle to make eight of them for our living room? Well, here is that story, but to refresh your memory, here are a few pics:
We enjoyed the brought in height, texture, and pattern that they brought to the room, but I consistently wondered if layering some breezy sheers in there someday might make my curtain-loving heart sing. You know, so they’d be fuller and airier and sort of layered and soft looking. So I lived without ’em for a while but kept my eye out for some low-cost fabric or sheers that I thought might do the trick.
And then one day in Ikea… I pounced. Two already made 98″ curtain panels for $9 was sufficient of a deal to make me jump, so I grabbed four packs of white breezy curtains with my living room windows (and glass sliders) in mind. I wish I knew the name for you folks but the packaging got tossed before I could take note and I looked online and did not see anything that matched what I got (in price and look). I do not think they are Vivan panels since we had those in our last house and these are lighter/thinner, and they are certainly not Lill curtains (those are especially sheer and mosquito-net-y). Update: We think they are called Wilma. Hope it helps!
Anyway, the first thing I did was toss the panels in the wash (to pre-shrink them so that when I hemmed them they would not later get washed and be too short if there was any shrinkage). Then I grabbed some ring-clips from Target (the same ones I used to hang the original 8 panels)…
When my sherr-ish panels came out of the dryer I cut the tab tops off (since I could simply clip them along the top with my ring-clips to hang them). Oh the tab tops might be a clue if you are looking for which curtains they are (if they have a rod pocket, like the Vivan panels, it is not them).
Then I hung them all up using the additional ring clips on the same curtain rod with the patterned panels. To make both curtain panels flow into each other I in fact overlapped them a smidge with the ring clips.
In short the two left-most clips on the patterned panel below also have the white sheers clipped behind them. That way there is no gap between the curtains and they all move as one unit (ex: if I pull the sheer out both curtain panels extend). Not that we move our curtains. Haha. They are truly more for softness and height. Especially in a giant room like this one – adding anything soft and breezy makes it feel less like a gymnasium and more like a real room.
So I got past the tab-cutting/washing/hanging steps and then I stalled. I had been meaning to hem them and share them for a while but other projects and book stuff popped up so I left these folks unhemmed and a few of you even noticed them in posts like this one, to which I replied “ack, still have to finish that project and then I promise I will journal all about it!” Haha, which brings us to this post.
Yup, I at last hemmed them all using heavy-duty iron-on hem tape (Heat N Bond from Michael’s) which I did while they were still hanging right on the rod (see more about that method in this post). I simply used a scissors to cut off the excess (there was in fact about a foot of it on each one) while leaving an extra inch to accommodate the hem (so once it was hemmed up they’d simply graze the floor).
Do not mind the dust bunnies. Let us zoom out, shall we?
It is hard to truly see the curtains when ya pan way out thanks to all the light coming in, but here ya go. We cannot wait to tackle a big media cabinet build, by the way. Likely after we conquer the kitchen…
Oh and for anyone wondering where the last two curtain panels hang (since it is straightforward to see the other 6 in the pics above), we have this slider right off the living room so that is where those live:
Aw and look at Clara’s little homemade coloring desk. It is been getting tons of action (she’s either cooking in her kitchen or going nuts with stickers and crayons at her table). Ah to be 20 months old and living it up with compact furnishings and fake fruit.
But back to the curtains. I truly like the breezy layered look and there is something about a double dose of ring-hooks on each side of those curtain rods that feels kind of posh. At least to a weirdo like me. So that is my fairly swift (except I took forever to hem them) curtain upgrade. What have you folks been clipping up/sewing/hem-taping these days?
