DIY Ruffle Curtains

With a few big, (slowly moving) projects in the works, sometimes it's nice to ignore the looming monstrosities (dining room table anyone?), and find success in a small project.  Tuesday, I tackled some DIY ruffle curtains for the living room.

When we moved in to our house, there were a lot of curtains left behind by the previous owners.  Most of them were cream, thin, muslin like material: not bad, but not what we had in mind.  They've been sitting in a pile in the basement while our windows have remained curtainless.  So I decided to revive a few using a tutorial over at Besserina.  (Thank you!)

Making these curtains is pretty basic.  Cut up strips of fabric, make and pin pleats, sew them to the curtains, iron the pleats into ruffles.  Bam.  Done.

I sewed in the only way that doesn't make me totally crazy: with wild abandon.  I refuse to hem, baste, and honestly... measure, unless it's absolutely necessary.  Luckily, this project leaves a lot of room for error. Wahoo!

The curtains don't go quite all the way to the floor, but with the chairs in front of them, we didn't mind. We're also not a big fan of where the current rod supports are.  Because of the placement, the curtains have to be completely outside the window.  We'll probably move those supports... eventually... maybe...

We love how it turned out.  It adds a lot to the little room and it was done and finished in one day.  Have you ever made your own curtains?  Are you a sew-only-with-wild-abandon-er like me?

A New Living Room

We were itching for a change.  The kind of change that involves a large budget... (which we don't have...) so we decided to mix things up a little.  We exchanged the big blue couches in the living room with the chairs and canvas couch in the family room.  It feels glorious. (Okay, to be fair... the living room now feels glorious.  The family room is now a little awkward and slightly cramped... but we're working on it.)

We moved the little side table, (an ikea hack made of two lack tables), and put a few little items on it: Crystal bowl was a wedding gift, birdcage from Hobby Lobby, and books from various university book stores, thrift stores, and gifts.  Not as quaint as I'm picturing it to be in the future, but it's on its way.

Now we begin teaching Will how not to carry crystal around...   We tend to parent in a "learn by mistake" fashion.  For example, we have never had a baby gate for the stairs, (it only took a small spill or two to learn), and we would like decorate in a way that doesn't look it's been "kid-proofed."  The aim is kid-friendly without being kid-centered.  We'll see how that goes...

We also purchased these new "barometer" lamps (!) from Ikea.  We would love for this room to be a sort of library in the future.  (We're envisioning built-in bookcases to frame the window).  The new lamps have a fairly direct light stream, so they work really well as reading lights.

And one more thing-- did you notice?! The chairs are both done!  The second went considerably faster than the first (surprise, surprise), but I got hung up on the last cushion.  This weekend, I finally worked up the courage to get that sucker done.  It feels good.  I told Grant, "I felt like it had been hanging over me like a old, dead goose..."  (Name that movie...)

Hooray for new spaces without spending a penny! (Okay, except for the new lamps...)