Friday, September 12, 2008

Mistreatment

I was recently introduced to the concept of Window Mistreatments from this blogger friend, who learned of it from this blogging home decorating genius. Really. She has so many good ideas for decorating your home on a low budget. It's wonderful.

So after 2 years of living in this house I finally have the know-how to put curtains on my windows without spending a fortune to do so. I found this curtain at a charity shop for 3 pounds...less then $6.00....1 curtain, 2 panels. So equipped with my curtain material, hot glue gun and upholstery tacks the first of many transformations began in my kitchen.


Taking one panel I cut off the curtain tape that Brits are so fond of. Then I cut it in half and hot glued the two raw edges together making one long piece. Since this material was a curtain in it's prior life I was left with just one raw edge along the length of the top. I folded this over and ironed it down.


I then took some dark green jersey material that was inherited and hot glued this to the back for a lining. I gave it a lining simply because being able to see where the wall ended and the window began would bug me. So a liner was needed.


The one thing that put me off of the Mistreatment idea was that you use upholstery tacks to hang your curtains. Plaster walls and tacks do not mix well...ok, really they don't mix at all. But I came up with the idea of putting a strip of wood where I want my curtain. So with just 3 little nails doing damage to the wall I am able to poke tacks until my hearts content. :)

Here's the first step. You can see I put my "tack poking board" high on the wall, as is recommended by Nester.


Second, step was tacking it in the center of the big U. Then tacking the center of the next 2 U's. I repeated this 2 more times. No measuring...just eyeing it.


So it ended up looking like this. Aren't my tacks so pretty!?! They have daisies on them...a little detail. Probably no one will ever notice, but it makes me happy. :)


And here is the finished Mistreatment. I love it! It is so nice to finally have a curtain on my window. It was cheap, lazy and quick, but I can't tell. Can you? Looks awesome to me. :)


I did exactly the same thing for the other window. It took even less time to make the second.


The downstairs bathroom and laundry area are my next Mistreatment victims.

I can't wait. :)

8 comments:

Be Thou Exalted said...

Looks great. I've been wanting to do this, I saw it on Abbie's blog, as well. "Mistreatment" - the word, doesn't do it justice! I guess I'll have to try it now! You guys made it looks so easy!

Dear Abbi said...

Woo-hoo!!! Your mistreatment is AWESOME!! Great job! And you are so ingenuis and creative to come up with the tack-board idea to combat the plaster problem...amazing! I would never have thought of that in our old plaster-walled house. Love the wall color in your kitchen, btw. Did you paint it? It goes great with the tile!

Once again, BEAUTIFUL mistreatments! Can't wait to see more!

Barbie said...

Looks very nice, Dawn! (And you didn't have to sew them, lol).

Dana said...

That looks great!

Ellen said...

You really did a great job! you made it look so easy and I still don't think I could do it. great Job. The kitchen looks great.

Stephanie said...

Too cute!

Melissa said...

That is so awesome!!

I Am Boymom said...

Way cute! it looks totally do-able for me!!