Family Room Curtains.... Finally.

My family room bow window has been nekkid since christmas for a little while. While my Mum was here over winter we took down the boring Ikea curtains, washed them and then they sat folded in my sewing room forever, waiting to be rejuvenated.  

I  love to re-purpose, so when we moved in to our house and the previous owners had left some boring adequate Ikea curtains behind, I decided I would keep them until I found something I liked better.

This is what the curtains used to look like:

...and now:

Don't mind Kevin's lap top in the corner, he looked comfy on the couch so I didn't want to move him...

Yes, curtains, not too exciting, I know. I am happy with them because I was able to re-purpose something FREE in to something pretty, and remember my fabric from my post back in february? There is the green and gold stripe in all it's glory. Green is not my favorite colour, but, it is a close third and it goes with the room.. plus it only cost me about 8$ for the transformation.

I made tie-backs to match, I also bought some plain green of the same fabric, and good thing I did because I used everything but a 8"x12" piece of the valance fabric... and I wanted wide tie-backs.

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So here is a brief "How To" 

(I don't want to insult anyones intelligence)

For an 11' span, I used 4 standard size Ikea curtain panels, and sewed 2 of them together for each side of the window. I had 2 meters of of valance fabric (you will need the same amount of lining) and another 1/4 meter  of a coordinating (or of the same fabric if you like) for the tie backs.

Here is the underside of the valance, I lined them with a thin and cheap polyester, just to give stability.

 As you can see above, I have a wooden dowel as a curtain rod, mainly because its an 11' span and I couldn't find a long enough curtain rod or one stable enough not to bow in the middle.

I really didn't want to have to hang 2 dowels just to have a valance, and I didn't make the curtains in the rod pocket style because the rod holders would make the curtain hang funny.

My solution was to attach the valance to the curtains as is.

Take your finished valance  and face good side of valance to the back side (side toward the window) of the curtain and sew a straight stitch along and it will look like the picture above....

When you put up your curtains flip the valance over to the front and it will be nice and finished looking.

 ...the back of the curtains still look like that...

Now you have your valance attached... easy as can be.

So pretty and shiny....

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Below is a picture my Mum took of the old windows... it was kind of a surprise, the boys changed the windows while I was at work so I only have mid-reno photos. We used to have 3 windows on the left, we filled in the side window (it looked at our neighbors anyway) and made a bigger hole for the new bow window.

...much better now, I think.
I love my Bow window, Kevin along with my Dad and his Dad, installed the windows last year, and the bow window was a mis-size so it was practically free for us. Another one of my favorite windows in the house, you can lay on the couch and watch the world go by.

Another project down, 9 million more to go.

 Happy Sewing!
-Courtney Soleil