Aug 2 10
by cara
at 8:01 PM
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Drop Cloth Curtains and Paintings

I hadn’t planned on blogging about every single detail of the Master Bedroom Makeover (and I promise I won’t!), but I am so stinkin’ excited about my drop cloth curtains that I just HAD to share.  Besides, who knows how long it will actually be before the entire makeover is complete?  Those home decor/crafty bloggers make room transformations look so easy, but this is definitely NOT my forte.  My forte?  Making messes.  Preschool crafts.  Taking naps.  Home makeovers are hard to work in!

Where was I?  Oh yes, the drop cloth curtains!  I’m about a year behind on the drop-cloth-as-home-decor craze that hit the blog world, but I absolutely LOVE the way my curtains turned out.

I purchased two packs of drop cloths (6’x9′) at Home Depot.  Each pack was $9.97, so each panel was less than $5!!  That price is hard to beat, wouldn’t you say?  This was the cheapest part of the project.  Drop cloths are already hemmed on all 4 sides, so no sewing necessary!  I washed and dried them once so they’d be nice and soft.  One word of warning: there was a slight color variation between the two packages of drop cloths…and it wasn’t noticeable until after I washed them.  They also shrunk several inches, but that didn’t matter for my project.  Mine were actually still too long.  Instead of hemming, I simply folded them over at the top (eyeballed it), and that was good enough.  They aren’t perfect—a little wrinkly (I don’t iron!) and I probably could have used a few more curtain clips, but they are exactly the beachy look I was going for.

The most difficult part was the curtain rod.  This window (which is identical to the one directly below it in the living room) requires a rod that is 144″ long, AKA the longest curtain rod known to man.  This length is REALLY hard to find, especially for a reasonable price.  I bought the living room rod at Pottery Barn 4 years ago for a bajillion dollars.  This time I did my research and discovered some at JC Penney.  Originally $119, the rod was on sale for $71.  (And don’t forget the clips!!)  Still pricey, but it was the cheapest option I could find.

The Picky Apple installed the rod this weekend, and I got to work hanging the curtains.  LOVE the way they look.  They add so much presence to the room.  I am so glad that I went with four panels instead of just two on the outside (that’s what I’ve got in the living room, and I’m already looking forward to changing them!)

I had some extra canvases leftover from Splatter Paint Art, and I decided that The Picky Apple and I should try painting our own triptych (hello art history vocab!) to hang above the bed, inspired by the painting mentioned in my Master Bedroom Makeover post.  We both had lots of fun painting with all of those extra little paint samples amassed over the years, but I’m not sure how well our paintings actually go with the blue-gray walls of our room.  One of the paintings had a little bit of red tempera paint on it…I figured I could just paint over it, but no matter how many coats I used, the red still bled through to the top.  So we’ve only got 2 paintings.  Mine’s on the left, The Picky Apple’s is on the right.   We’ll use them somewhere, somehow, just maybe not in the Master Bedroom.

And the paintings are blurry in this one, but look at that cutie with the blue eyes!

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12 Comments
  1. Love love LOVE these curtains!! What a great price, too. And your paintings, at least from what I can see in the photos, look like they would fit perfectly with you motif – they’re beachy and beautiful!

    And I must agree with you – that is a cute little blue eyed guy at the end of the post. 🙂

  2. I like the curtains a lot. And, how smart are you to just fold it over instead of sewing? Love that.

  3. Debra permalink

    Wow, we love the art and the curtains too!

  4. jenn permalink

    Thanks for the great posts.

  5. What a great idea! I’ve got to re-do our master bedroom as well, and have been thinking what to do for curtains. This could be something to try!

  6. So pretty! I love those pictures – you are very talented!!
    oxo
    Jen

  7. a free permalink

    for long curtain rods you can use conduit pipe. can be spray painted any color you want or left stainless. it’s very cheap and sturdy. find at the hardware store in electrical area.

  8. melissa permalink

    looks great also another idea is to lay ur curtain down an pleat ur curtain with ur clips and it will pull ur curtain up a bit higher and hide that bracket conduit works awesome and very cheap! great job!

  9. Kimberly permalink

    So doing this! By the way, what color paint is on the walls? So pretty!

Trackbacks & Pingbacks

  1. Master Bedroom Makeover: The Vision | The Picky Apple
  2. Best of 2010: Projects | The Picky Apple
  3. Nursery Progress | The Picky Apple

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