curtains for daughter’s bed

So here we go. It is Monday (blah) and I have a project to share. My daughter’s bed curtains. I feel so accomplished to actually have something done. We are nearing the end of my daughter Nora’s bedroom redo. We have a book shelf to put up, some drawer knobs to put on and then it is done. I am excited for it to be done so she can enjoy her bigger girl room. But also so it is one more thing checked off the forever to do list.

Anyways, the curtains. We talked about it here and here. They are done, and Nora is on love with her bed. I can truly point out 10 things that should or could have been done better. But I really don’t think she cares in the least.

Nora enjoying her new curtains on her bed

Now down to the nuts and bolts of how we did these curtains. We have 8ft ceilings, so since they will be suspended from the ceiling to the floor they need to be 8 ft. We guessed about 8 1/2 ft so it can gather slightly on the floor and also it allows us to fold for seams and when connecting to the ceiling. We were needing 12 yards of fabric, 32 ft of fabric. With 4 panels that will be folded around the corners of her bed.

This is the mound of fabric that we started with

the pinned edge

this is my claim to fame with this project. I pin

As you feed the fabric through the sewing machine we pull the pins out, allowing the material to go through the machine. I cannot do this part. For some unknown reason I cannot sew a straight line. My darling husband can. His Mom is a big time sewing fan, and so I tell myself it is just in his genes. He feeds the edge of the fabric through the sewing machine, lightly pulling it through from the other side. I am told there is different stitches that can be done, but we just did a straight stitch.

I pin… and my Husband sews

 

this is the fabric being sewn

 

a close up of the line once sewnv

Next we move onto attaching the curtains to the ceiling. My plan was the see through curtains will be attached to a curtain rod from the ceiling so she can open and close them. Then the pink ones will be hung over the corners of her bed, not being able to open. The see through ones was really the easy part. Get a curtain rod and attach it to the ceiling. My husband put in dry wall anchors, these allow the screw to attach depper and better into the dry wall. Then screwed the rod into. This made it more sturdy and more likely to stay hung up.

our curtain rods. We ended up just using one since her bed is against the wall, I decided she did not need a sheer curtain on her wall

the attachments for the curtain rod to the ceiling

the laser leveler on her bed frame

this is the curtain rod holders with the laser going through to show the line we used

all set up and ready for the rod

So the sheer curtains and rods are done. And I should note that I purchased white fabric with cut out detailing that I had planned to use with the pink curtains. But life got in the way, and they never got sewn. Sitting next to the nicely sewn pink ones. While I was at world market buying a few reusable lunch items for my kids I saw these cute sheer curtains with birds, butterflies and flowers. I caved and bought them. I still have a ton of fabric of white that I plan to make into pillows for our spare bedroom as well as cover seat cushions of a bench I currently have in my garage. It is one of my “will get to soon” projects. So I did not waste I just am reusing the fabric.

close up of the new fabric

The tough part starts. With the plan of the pink curtains being only on the corners the complicated part of how to attach them to the ceiling. We have these scrap pieces of wood that are in the garage. They are about 3 inches wide and made of I have no clue what. We cut them down to size, 2 feet each. There was 8 of those needed.

the 8 pieces

I figured I could make them into L shapes and then staple the material to the boards. Then nailing them into the ceiling.

the grand plan for the L shaped curtains holders

Initially I planned to attach the ends of the L shape together before attaching the fabric. But decided against it because then I could manipulate the corner a little more once the fabric was attached. So the plan was to take the fabric and set the boards on the edge. Then fold over once. Once that was done, staple the fabric on the inside end of both boards.

the boards on the end, a tiny bit apart from each other

folded over the boards

Now, I had 6 ft wide fabric that needs to be attached to 2 ft boards. There was a lot of folding going on. I did this by having my husband hold the boards up with the fabric attached to them on one end. Then I folded up sporadically the fabric all folding the same way. It created these great folded lines. Because they were going to be ruched I did not worry about measuring to make exact folds. It was a risk but it turned out looking great. After they were folded over I stapled them down to the boards.

the ruched fabric

my very, completely not scientifically folded fabric

all stapled and ready to go

Next we held them up on the ceiling, and marked around it to see where they would be attached. After that my husband drilled in two holes, one on either side of each board. Then we put it back on the ceiling and marked where the holes were. Once that was marked we took them down and my husband inserted the dry wall anchors then screwed the screws in the dry wall anchors. With the boards attached.

the dry wall anchor

screwing in the dry wall anchor

the attached curtains and L shaped boards

the corner of the fabric

the ruched curtains

Then, after all of that they are done! Well, I do plan to fold over the extra fabric on the inside of the curtains to cover the ugly, stapled, holey boards on the ceiling. But, it is done. They turned out great, honestly better then I expected. I was concerned with the folding of the fabric, I worried it would look messy. But, it gave the plain fabric some details. My daughter loves it, she says it is just like a princess bed. I think there is some reference to sleeping beauty in there somewhere, but I was too busy playing peek a boo with the kids and the curtains to really delve deeper into the princess bed reference. They are pretty sturdy too, I pulled quite hard on them (holding my breath, and crossing my toes) and nothing happened. No tear or rip. My son Caleb also fell backward off the bed and grabbed onto the curtains his whole way down. Him and the curtains came back up unscathed.

there they are, they are so pretty even the sun shines on them

I am moving her letters, it is not just a random “or” hanging up there

it turned out so pretty

the folded fabric, and the top of the curtains

this shows the corner that I put in

here is the inside of the corner

Nora’s crew of buddies, Violet, Monkey, and Jace respectively

the little green birds pop out in the curtains are great

the lovely bed

So there you go folks. I hope the plans were written easy enough, it is so hard to make it all make sense. Any questions please feel free to e-mail me. And thank you for patiently waiting for me to get things together. I am back, up and running and anxiously getting some smaller and bigger projects done. Enjoy your Monday!