DIY Custom French Pleat Curtains

When we chose the dark blue paint color (Benjamin Moore Evening Dove) for our master bedroom a few months ago, we decided that we would hang white curtains from floor to ceiling to make the room feel lighter. The room has a vaulted ceiling, but I loved the high contrast look of the tall white curtains in other rooms. 

Shopping for curtain panels can be a pain... you need to find the correct length, material, and sometimes you get stuck between options like tap-top or grommets... which can be right for certain rooms and situations, but wasn't what I was looking for. I decided that I wanted either back-tab curtains or French pleat (pinch pleat).  Panels like these vary widely in cost, but a lot of times you will spend a lot of extra money just to get the pleat look. Well, here's a great and surprisingly cheap option for you to make your own French Pleat curtains using Ikea Ritva curtain panels. 

A pair of Ikea Ritva panels comes in either 98" or 117" lengths, so you get a lot of fabric for the low cost (you can always hem them to be shorter, if needed). I bought the 98" length and I'm really happy with how they look. Here's how I created the French Pleats.

 You will need to buy the panels from IKEA and then buy triple pleat hooks (like these) from somewhere like JoAnn Fabric or on Amazon. IKEA does sell some pleat hooks, but they are double pleat hooks and won't give you the same effect. If you want the triple pleat, you will need to buy the 4-pronged pins.

The nice thing about using the Ritva curtain panels, is that they have built in pleater tape into the header of the curtain. (If you are doing this with another kind of panel, you will need to sew this pleater tape into the top section of the curtain yourself) This means that you can create almost any design of pleats that you want... you just need to figure out where to put your hooks.

To start, put one of the prongs into a slot in the header.  Then, depending on how deep you want the pleats, place the second prong into another slot. Continue this until you have your finished single pleat.  Before you start your panel, you will want to decide how big you want each pleat to be and how much space you want to leave in between pleats. For my curtains, I had 5 pleats (each created out of 8" of panel width) leaving about 3" between each. On the ends, you can put a single pin in a slot to keep the panel ends neatly attached to the rod.

 When you are done, it looks like this:

Then, you just need to either attach the hooks to rings and hang them, or use the rings directly on your rod.

There you go! I'm pretty excited about the way they turned out. I still need to do a lot more in this room, but having curtains up already makes it feel so much nicer!

Our next project

For a while, I haven't really felt like taking on any new projects at the house. Once your house gets to a certain point, it's easy to ignore the minor things you had on your to-do list. And actually, that's a really nice feeling. But, recently I decided that I do want to finish our master bedroom soon. I decided that a room that we spend so much time in should be loved just as much as all of the other rooms I've decorated.

My first vision of this room is to have a bold wall color with neutral decor. We have a lot of pale and pastel colors elsewhere in our house, so I want something different on the walls here. I'm thinking a navy or slate blue, with light gray, taupe and white accents. So this weekend, I spent some time picking paint samples and painting. 

We will probably keep our bedding, at least for a little while, so I decided I need to pick a color that goes well with that but can be flexible, if we change it in the future.

At first glance, my top contenders for paint were: Benjamin Moore: Mysterious, Evening Dove, Blue Note, Normandy, and Hale Navy, and Sherwin Williams Granite Peak.

I narrowed that down to BM Evening Dove, BM Mysterious, and SW Granite Peak and painted samples of those on posterboard.   

L-R: BM Evening Dove, BM Mysterious, and SW Granite Peak

Our favorite is the one on the left, Evening Dove by Benjamin Moore. We will probably paint this weekend (hopefully!) since Sherwin Williams is having a 40% sale (I usually color-match BM paint to SW, since their store is closer to us).  

So, what do you think about this color? It's dramatic, but I think it will be a nice change from boring white walls. With three windows and a vaulted ceiling in this room, I don't think it will be too dark. Other things we hope to do in the room such as paint or swap out furniture will also add contrast, so I think it will be pretty. 

Here's a picture of BM Evening Dove in another room. I am pretty excited!

via Houzz

Media Room Paint

I hope you had a great Thanksgiving! We had a super busy week and weekend. Today, I'm sharing the new paint color that I painted in our media room about a week ago. It's a custom color by Sherwin Williams, a darkened version of Gauntlet Gray (140% of SW 7019). Here are some pictures. I really like it a lot. Oh and don't mind that outdated, gold fan, it has since been removed and replaced with something a little more modern ;) 

Library Reveal!

Wow, I can finally say this room is DONE! It's taken a while, but that's because I wanted to make sure that I loved all of the pieces I picked. Here are all of the pictures of the room!

 

Sources:

Sofa - Macys

Linen Chairs - World Market

Wall Paint - Sedate Gray, Sherwin Williams

Chandelier - Home Depot

Bookcases - Billy, Ikea

Curtain Fabric - P. Kauffman Leaf Cloud, LS Fabrics

Square Frames - Virserum, Ikea

Botanical Prints - Rocky Top Studio, Etsy

Ottoman Fabric - Robert Allen Home Casablanca Geo Aquamarine, LS Fabrics

Geometric Pillows - 3BModLiving, Etsy

Geometric Pillows - Connected fabric, LS Fabrics

Floor Lamp - Target, shade covered wtih ikat fabric from LS Fabrics

Silver mirror table and mercury glass lamp - HomeGoods

DIY Upholstered Ottoman

I am so excited to share with you my most recent project... turning an old table into an upholstered ottoman! It was actually really easy and I think the result is a very professional looking ottoman! Here's how I did it. 

I already had this coffee table, but you could easily find one like this on Craigslist or maybe you already have one around the house. Anything that has legs that you like and an easy shape to cover will work. If the table is taller, you can cut the legs down so that the ottoman will be comfortable for resting your feet on.  This one was fine, so I didn't do that step. 

First, I painted the legs. You could stain them or leave the legs as they are, whatever you prefer. I used Martha Stewart Light Reflections paint and gave the legs a slightly distressed finish. Annie Sloan Chalk Paint would be a great option too. 

Because of the shape of my table, I added wood around the bottom, so that the finished shape would be straight on the sides and I would have something to hammer my nail heads into. 

If you are going to want to add tufting to your ottoman, go ahead and figure out the placement of the buttons.  For my square ottoman, I decided to use this pattern of button placement. 

Drill holes in your table(!) where the buttons will go, so that you will be able to thread a long needle through later.

Cut your foam to fit the top of the ottoman. I used 2" high density foam from JoAnn's fabric. It usually cost's about $32 a yard, so be sure to get it on sale or use a coupon! To cut the foam, use a marker to draw a straight line and then use a sharp blade, like an Exacto knife, to cut through the foam (a serrated knife from your kitchen even works well). 

Use spray adhesive to glue your foam directly on top of the table.

Next, I cut foam strips to go on the sides. This makes it comfy on the sides so you won't hurt your leg if you bump into it. Use the adhesive to get it to stick and stay in place. At the end of this step, you should start to see your ottoman coming together!

Cover the foam and table with batting. 

Use a staple gun to staple the batting to the underside and pull tightly to get the shape on top that you like.

I cut out and stapled down the excess fabric on the corners and underneath, so that there was no extra batting hanging down.  Now your table is really starting to look like an ottoman! 

Place your fabric on top of the ottoman and make sure you have it lined up properly if you have a geometric fabric.  I tacked it in some places on the bottom to make sure it stayed in place. 

Flip the table over and staple the fabric to the wood.  Work around the sides making sure it is pulled tight.  I made straight seams down the side on the corners, but you could do a lot of different things to finish the fabric at the corners however you like.

To add the buttons, push a long sturdy needle straight up from the bottom, through button covered in your fabric, and then back down.  You can secure the knot on the underside of the table with another button or some nails to hold it in place. Make sure you use heavy duty upholstery thread, it won't break from the tension. Pull all of the buttons so they are equally as deep in the foam as the rest.

Yay, a tufted ottoman!

The last step is to add decorative nailheads along the base of the ottoman. Use a rubber mallet to hammer them in without damaging the surface of the nail heads. I placed the nails about 1 inch apart and used a pen to mark all of the holes, so they would be in a straight line. 

And there... you're done! Now you have a great and much more inexpensive upholstered ottoman, in the fabric of your choice!