A Little More Like Home...

I absolutely love our house on base, but it still hasn’t felt like a home to me yet.

It is extremely important for me to feel comfortable and relaxed where I live, so that I can feel comfortable and relaxed outside my home. It also helps with my creativity and my ability to think creatively.  

With that said, it has been a priority to get these curtains done and put my jewelry making on the back burner for a (tiny) bit.

I wanted to make my own curtains because...
#1: I have a wonderful old Kenmore sewing machine that was handed down to me that I almost never use, 
#2: I’ve never made my own curtains, and 
#3: I wanted to improve my sewing skills.

Plus, thanks to my sewing expert neighbor friend, she directed me to fabric.com, where I found fabric I really liked at a great price.

I was able to take advantage of my husband being gone for a week on a TDY (military business trip) by hunkering down and focusing on sewing. It definitely kept me (and Sophia) busy and made the time he was gone go by much more quickly.  I should always do projects like this when he’s gone on his trips!

Sophia keeping track of my fabric cutting materials

For the curtain panels, I found an AWESOME tutorial online from House of Hepworths.

The only change I made was to use actual blackout lining material instead of a white twin flat sheet as shown in the tutorial, so I had to figure out the fabric requirements for the blackout material on my own. 

Measuring the blackout lining & comparing to curtain material

I did a LOT of measuring and ironing to make sure I sewed the seams straight

Pinning the blackout material to the curtains! Almost ready to sew...

My sewing machine did great after I gave it some oil and TLC!

Finished panel

For the valances, I used what I had learned from the panel tutorial and just made really short curtain panels without the lining. For the long windows in the kitchen and guest bedroom, I just made two valances and scrunched them together, which saved on the fabric yardage I had to buy.

Guest Bedroom

Office & Sophia's Kitten Tree Room

Laundry Room

Kitchen

Dining Area

The curtain for the front door window panel was a little bit more involved.  The hardest part was making sure the top and bottom rod pockets matched up with where I wanted the rods to go on the window, as well as making sure the pockets on top and bottom were exactly parallel to one another.

Now we just need a little more decoration to fill out our entry way!

I got lucky and found great curtain rods at Wal-Mart for a great price! I just love the “oil rubbed bronze” look.  My wonderful husband helped me install them, and from there I was finally able to hang those curtains up and finish the hems at the lengths I wanted them!

 

I really like how they turned out, and it definitely gives a more relaxed and cozy feel to the house.

Our Bedroom

Family Room

I am especially impressed with myself because I spent A LOT of time (hours and hours over several weeks) measuring and making Excel spreadsheets on the computer, listing all the curtains I wanted and how many total yards of material I would need; taking into account the seams, hems and curtain rod pockets that took away from the overall length and width of the material.

Numbers, measuring and planning ahead are definitely NOT one of my strengths, and it doesn't come easily to me like it does for other people (my husband!). I had to spend a lot of brain energy double checking myself so I didn't make mistakes, BUT I wanted to do this all myself for the first time because that’s how I learn and gain confidence in my abilities… and also learn to laugh at myself.

For example, I never realized how hard it is to cut a long piece of fabric in a straight line without a cutting mat. Good thing I learned from my dad to “measure twice and cut once”! However, with this experience, it was more like “measure 10 times and cut once”! I finally got to the point where I just said “okay, just cut it already and quit doubting yourself!”

By sewing the curtains and valances myself, I calculated that we saved over $200 compared to buying the same type of curtains and valances in a store. Plus, we get the added benefit of having curtains that no one else has, which I think makes all that effort worth it!