diy dropcloth curtains

I'm always looking for an opportunity to design, create, or build something for half the price of what you can buy it outright for. It gives you a sense of accomplishment and saves you some mula! Pretty good feeling I'd say... Well Rod and I both loved Restoration Hardware's linen curtains. But guess how much they are a panel... anywhere from $200-400!! And after doing some more searching, curtain panels and hardware in general are just expensive! So, I took to my good friend Google and did a little search for DIY linen curtains and this turned into a search for Drop Cloth curtains which I found a good tutorial here.

I bought our drop cloths at Lowes because I liked the color of them better than Home Depot, however Home Depot sells a 2 pack for $10 of a 6x9 panel and Lowes is a 1 pack for $10... But, because our bedroom windows are smaller I was able to get one panel for the living room and one for the bedroom out of 1 pack! That's $5 a panel basically!!!

Since the 4th of July weekend was rainy it gave me the opportune time to spread out in my in-laws living room and sew all weekend (thanks for letting me turn your living room into a craft explosion for a few days...)

I washed on hot and dried all of the panels to make sure they shrank, which they did, about 4". And then I got to ironing the wrinkled mess, measuring and cutting. This process takes a while to get everything just right, but it's part of it and in the end I am so pleased with how they turned out! I ended up hemming all of the edges. On a lot of the tutorials they say you can leave the pre-hemmed edge from the package, but mine were already fraying so I hemmed them to tuck that away just so it wouldn't get worse if I ever washed them.

We have 36 1/2" wide windows in our living room so my finished sewn panel was 42" wide. I left them a little long at 93" to hang 6" above the window and drape on the floor a bit. What do y'all think?!

The curtain rods are so simple and a little stroll through Lowes I probably would have thought of this myself, but another google search led me to electrical conduit for the curtain rods!!! $1.93 for a 10' length. My awesome husband and father-in-law helped me cut them down, sand them, prime them and spray paint them! BIG thanks to them!! We spray painted them Rustoleum's Oil Rubbed Bronze and they turned out fabulous!! I did take a stroll through Lowes on my own and find wooden finials in the wood/stair-building? department, I attached them to old wine corks and we spray painted them and they slide into the ends of the conduit rods!!

       

So total costs for FOUR windows (16 panels)

(4) 6'x9' drop cloths $40

(2) 10' long 3/4" diameter conduit $4

(4) 2 pack of wooden finials $12

(8) wine corks FREE

(2) cans of spray paint  $12

Mounting Hardware (L brackets & Conduit clamp) $8

8 sets of ring clips $70

The ring clips were the most expensive item, Ikea has them really cheap, but we don't have one close by, so I had to splurge on those at Lowes...

TOTAL:

$146 ($36/ window for everything!!)

Total Time: One weekend

Next crafty project is to paint some artwork to add color to our living room!!