Roman Shades

So there has been much in blogland about DIY roman blinds made from mini-blinds; Newlywed Diaries, Little Green Notebook, and Craftzine all have great tutorials. I think that is a fabulous idea, and fully intend to try it, but sometimes you've gotta work with what you've got. Which is not mini blinds.

When we moved into the house, the previous owners left the window treatments. Unfortunately the kitchen and dining room were both country/burgandy themed, and as a BRIGHTS person, I just couldn't deal for more than a moment or two with the unbleached-and-burgandy gingham roman blinds in my kitchen breakfast nook.

I took them down, along with the burgandy valances and coordinating gingham ones in the dining room. *shudder* That left the dining room with a burgandy tone on tone brocade shade and a burgandy toile valance. I can live with it.

The kitchen desperately needed something to shield us from the neighbors and insulate our single-paned windows, so just taking them down wasn't an option. After noticing that the gingham blinds looked like they were homemade, I decided to dismantle them and use them as a pattern for my own.

I found some tablecloths, placemats, and napkins I really liked at Marshall's, and bought enough of the table clothes to make 4 roman blinds.

***ASIDE: I know, I know, I LOVE matchy sometimes, but I just can't help it! I blame mom for the Kelly's Kids clothes she forced me into at a young age: no matter how much I hated it, apparently it made some impression on my developing grey matter!***

Well I layed them out in the dining room and cut the tableclothes slightly larger than the blinds. Then I realized that I would probably need some kind of backing fabric, so I cut an old sheet to use as my backing and sewed it to the tablecloth fabric. Then I realized I probably didn't even need to take the existing blinds apart as I had planned--I just folded over the raw edges and sewed the backed tablecloth fabric AROUND the fugly gingham! I then ran my machine down the center of the blinds a couple of times so that the fabric wouldn't bunch up when the cord was pulled and VOILA! Brand new custom blinds!


I think they go swimmingly with my yellow Kate Spade discontinued pattern, don't you?? It just makes me so happy to be in this space...I try to keep the table set so that Brett and I don't use it for a mail dumping station, etc.


The kitchen and the family room are the most often used rooms in our house, so I am really really happy to have them both made over to our specifications.

There are more big plans for our kitchen coming up soon, so stay tuned...