A Little Bit Shady

Lee and I are moving along with the house we are renovating and I have more posts to share soon, but I wanted to share a little project that I did over Christmas break.  I have been wanting a roman shade for my kitchen window.  Five years ago I bought some plain white roman shades for my living room bay window.  These were a temporary privacy fix until I found something else in the living room.  I don’t have a picture but you can see here that I have changed then out for bamboo shades.

The smaller window’s shades moved to the guest bedroom for a short season and the large roman shade moved to the laundry room as seen here.

As you know, last fall I switched out the white shade for another bamboo shade and some curtains.

This little guy needed a home.  Luckily, he fit perfectly in

this kitchen window.

I hung it to make sure.  It was the perfect width but way too long.  I also didn’t want a bland white curtain. A few years ago I made curtains for the sliding glass door.  I buy my fabric at a store that is 45 minutes away.  I often buy extra so I don’t have to drive 45 minutes if I have an “oops” moment. I pulled what I had left out and it was wide enough but too short.  That was fine because that determined how short I was going to cut the Roman Shade.  Here is how I did a quick fix to my existing roman shade.

1.)  I took a picture of how the string was attached to make the shade functional.  After doing this, and understanding how it worked, I took the string system apart and labeled it.  (Left side string, middle string, right side string)  I also took out the eye hooks at the top.  My shade was hung by “screw in” eye hooks.

2.)  I determined how much I needed to cut and then I cut the bottom off of the shade.  The roman shade had metal dowel rods sewn across the shade.  I wanted to sew the least amount as possible so I just cut right under the seam of a rod.  (A roman shade is bigger than the window so I cut three dowel rods longer than the window so there could be four folds when it was pulled to

the top and two folds when the shade was covering the window.)  I didn’t have to cut much but I did cut right under the seam to keep that bottom rod in the shade.

3.)  I washed, ironed and cut the fabric to size.  I made it a few inches wider and longer on each side of the shade.

4.)  I hand sewed the loops to the shade that were once on the bottom of the shade.  Confused?  The strings on the shade were attached to little plastic hoops.  I marked where the fabric where they existed and then cut them.  I used the part of the fabric I cut off to determin where they would go at the “new bottom” of the shade.  I hand sewed them back on.

5.)  I grabbed my glue gun and glued the fabric on the back.  To do this I folded an inch and ironed it and then folded it again and glued it to the back of the shade.

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6.)  I did the same to the bottom.  To get perfect corners see the picture below step

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7.)  I sewed the fabric to the front of the existing shade.  I was hoping to not have to sew, but I realized the shade would not go up like I wanted it if I didn’t attach the shade to the front in some way.  If you are not a sewer, before steps 4 and 5, you could use Heat-N-Bond industrial hemming tape to iron on the fabric to the front of the existing shade.  You want to iron /fuse it right above and below the dowel rods in the existing shade so the fold will happen at those points.  I had some invisible string so I sewed it above and below each of the dowel rods.

8.)  I added the eye hooks back to the top of the shade.  ( I used my finger to find where the existing holes were placed)

9.)  I used my picture to figure out how to restring the roman shade.  I was thankful I labeled the strings.  They were different lengths for a reason

10.)  I hung the shade.  I love how it turned out but it looks like I need to iron it a little more. (I am not the best at ironing)

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I am a little bit of a hoarder when it comes to things like this.  If I think I can revamp, rehab, or reuse something I will put it in a closet and try to reuse it. This is also a great way to make a custom shade for your home.  Wal-Mart, Target and even Amazon have inexpensive beige or white roman shades.  Just by adding  some fabric and you will have a custom shade without having to figure out how to make one from scratch.

Have any of you revamped something and moved it all around your house?  Do tell.  If you blog, link pictures.  I would love to see it!

Thanks for reading,

Jennifer