A blogger by the name of Debi commented in a previous post about an idea she had, adding a border to ready-made drapery to customize them. This reminded me of some I’ve seen before. So, I thought I’d pass along this idea that Debi and I think is great. Hope you agree.
Ready-made drapery is fine, but sometimes the standard sizes and colors of ready-mades are limited. A great way to customize them is to add a contrasting fabric border to the bottom of the panels. Doing this, ties in the colors and design of your room, to the drapery and looks custom.
You can use any color of drapery but I like the white or cream colored panels. Then I can add a coordinating solid or print from the room design, for the border…good contrast, and draws your eye to the detail. There are a couple ways to add the border fabric. I like to hang my drapery high, close to the ceiling. So, if I buy a standard 84″ length panel, I would add an additional 10″ to 12″ of border fabric to the bottom of the panel for a custom floor to ceiling look. You, also can just sew the border onto the standard 84″ length if you don’t want the floor to ceiling length. Sew the border right on top of the panel if the border fabric isn’t too heavy.
Buy extra border fabric that you can repeat in the room for pillows, chair or bench fabric etc. Unhem or cut off the drapery panels, to the length you want. Figure out how wide you want the border to be. It can be any width. I like a nice heavy look, between 8″-20″. Figure out the total length you want with the two pieces sewn together. Allow for a seam between the two. Sew the border onto the panel. If you have a serger, that sews a nice finished edge on the back. Sew the side seams and hem the bottom. If you don’t sew, you can take them to a dry cleaner that does alterations and they usually can sew them for you.
When you’re all done, hang them and you’ll have great looking “custom” made drapery for ready-made prices.
Good design is all about the details. These are details that will pull a room together and show your great style.
Do you have any other ideas on dressing-up the drapes? Please comment.
(additional photos to come)
1. Super idea again, Cathy!
Have you ever put the add on on top….I know you’d have to add hangers or rings or something????
by Julie — 7/8/08 at 6:39 pm #
2. I think this is a good idea and I have seen several designers on HGTV use this concept.
by Marcia — 7/9/08 at 6:32 am #
3. Hi Julie,
There are so many ways to jazz-up drapes. Yes, you could add the border to the top of the drapes as well. Same way as the bottom. Just use the clip-on rings to clip to the top of the drapery and slide them on a rod. A great look as well.
I’m trying to upload another picture of this idea but I’m experiencing T.D. (technical difficulties). I’ll load it when I can.
Thanks for the great idea. There are lots of ways to add pizazz to ready-mades…just don’t overdo a good thing.
Always good to hear from you.
LYC
by Cathy — 7/9/08 at 1:09 pm #
4. Hello Marcia,
This IS a good idea. Very simple to do and really makes a statement in the room. Yes, variations of the design are used all the time on decorating shows. If the designers think it’s a good idea for their shows, then they must be showing us something we could do in our own homes.
Good ideas get around fast.
Thanks for dropping in. Write back again.
by Cathy — 7/9/08 at 1:21 pm #
5. Hi Cathy, you still come up with the best ideas…Back home from Florida for the summer months in WNY…we are starting to re-do the livingroom and dining room of our old farmhouse here…been cream and stenciled wallpaper(Diningroom) reds blues and hunter green….time for a whole new look…saw an inspiration room in cottage living that showed the walls a light blue grey paint with bamboo shades and chocolate brown toile curtains on the windows sisal rugs..I love the look of it…if I went that route I wondered what color I should paint the walls in my adjacent diningroom I was looking at Benjamin Moore Hawthorne yellow (a light buttery cream yellow) or thinking of a moss green or some color in the green family do you have any paint color suggestions for the blue walls in the livingroom and what color might look good for the diningroom (you can see it well from the livingroom…I want a classic casual feeling in both rooms and will be buying new furniture in the future as well……my inspiration room is in the Cottage living fresh ideas magazine pgs 46-47…I will have to install wall to walll carpet too any suggestions for a sisial look wall to wall carpet look? another inspiration room I love is on the http://www.hgtv.com web-site under the 24hr design sho it is under Classic Casual Livingroom and uses the blue walls with red accents and the moss green in the diningroom and inside the bookcases in the living room…this is also a great look can’t wait for your suggestions…my husband is stripping wallpaper as I write this…Thanks M. Fitchlee
by M. Fitchlee — 7/9/08 at 4:38 pm #
6. Hi Margie,
So glad to hear from you! It’s been a while. Is your Florida home all decorated? I bet you’re enjoying it alot. Now you’re back up in New York in your wonderful farmhouse. Wow… the best of both worlds!
Sounds like you’re busy updating the living room and dining room. I love all your ideas. I did look at the room on the HGTV site. Very nice, great color. I do not have access to the Cottage Living magazine you referred to. So, I’ll throw out a few ideas from what you asked about.
You want light blue/grey walls in the L.R.(nice) and a buttery yellow or green in the D.R. Either would be fine with the blue walls. The trick to blending different wall color in areas that are open to each other is, what I call, “cross pollinating” color. Bring the dominant color from one room into the other room in smaller doses and vice versa. If you use a green wall color in the dining room. Bring that same color into the blue painted Living room…in pillows, art, area rug, draperies, paint the back of a bookcase (as they did on the HGTV room) In return, add some of the living room blue into the green dining room…fabric on chairs, art, floral, drapes etc. Don’t overdo, your eye just wants to pick up both colors in both rooms for the color scheme to make sense. Like I said, use the secondary colors in smaller amounts in both rooms. Keep your colors on the shaded (greyed) side so they are not too intense. Try samples first in both rooms before you commit.
I love the sisal look carpet. There is some very durable nylon or wool broadloom that looks just like sisal, but softer, long wearing and cleanable. Great texture and style. Love the woven wood/bamboo shades. You can have them lined for privacy and energy control.
Put a plan together of your ideas and colors. Think things through before you jump into it and then it will all come together nicely.
I’m anxious to hear what you end up doing. Sounds exciting!
It’s nice to have a husband that strips wallpaper…a tough job.
Good luck with everything. Keep me posted.
by Cathy — 7/10/08 at 5:56 pm #
7. Dear Cathy, I was so thrilled to hear from you …I love your style and appreciate all of the suggestions you have given me…as for the light blue-grey paint and the buttery yellow… or green….do you have specific shades and manufactures you could recommend…lots of people like Benjamin Moore paints..if you have names of shades for me that would be a tremendous help…so much out there …My home in Florida is still a work in progress and I think the Homegoods store in venice florida has become my second home while in Florida…it is a great store…I like the one in Cape Coral even better but it is not near my home….I will get back sometime this fall…we are ready to prep the livingroom to paint so I really need to pick my wall color…hope you can suggest a shade of light blue-grey that might work for me…thanks…Margie
by margie — 7/10/08 at 10:06 pm #
8. Hello Margie,
I’ll be happy to give you some ideas from this end, although what I suggest from here, in my light (Ca.) may not work in your light (N.Y.) But it’s a place to start.
I do like Benjamin Moore paint, also Behr paint (Home Depot) is very good.
I’m thinking with a farmhouse, you may not get alot of light, (correct me if I’m wrong). So, I wouldn’t go too dark.
Look in this range of B.M. paint…
for blue/grey, HC 145-150, wedgewood grey (it’s more blue) or woodlawn blue looked nice here.
for green, HC 115-120, guilford green, hancock green looked good.
for yellow, HC 1-6, weston flax, windham cream, or greenmount silk looked good.
Also check B.M. Affinity colors, (costs more, but, state-of-the-art paint)
This whole line of paint was made to blend with each other.
Look at…
Blue…serenata, tranquility,solitude
green…urban nature, elemental, lapland
yellow… jicama, handmade,soleil
Try samples first and look at them at all times of the day and night.
Let me know if this is the range of color you are liking. Get alot of help from your B.M. paint dealer. They are a great resource.
Let me know what you end up doing. I always like to hear back.
Take Care.
by Cathy — 7/12/08 at 12:17 pm #
9. Hi Margie, I also painted and decorated a dining and living room each of which is seen from the other. I went with the same wall color but a shade darker in the dining room. I also added wallpaper on the bottom half of the d.r. wall with moulding to separate the paper from the paint. The colors in the wallpaper bring in all of the colors I used in the 2 rooms…an online wallpaper site allows you to search wallpaper by color…rather than flipping through wallpaper books. I also had d.r. chairs upholstered in one of the solid colors. Of course, I used a lot of HomeGoods products, too!
A great bluish/gray color is Behr’s “rhino” which I am going to use in my bedroom-bath. It is similar to but cheaper than r. hardware’s silvery blue.
Kath
by Kath — 7/13/08 at 8:47 am #
10. Thanks for your great ideas Kath. I’m sure Margie will read them and appreciate them as well.
by Cathy — 7/14/08 at 11:56 am #
11. Dear Kath, I wish to also thank you for your ideas and input…I will look up the Behr paint Rhino that you mentioned….I know that whatever I come up with I will have for a long time…so I better think twice about it and go with what I hope is best for me…one problem I have is that i the past i used a lot of hunter green in my house…I do not want that anymore…you can also see the diningroom from my kitchen and I am sattled with a hunter green counter top on my kitchen island…that can be changed in time but we need to get these 2 projects done first..thank goodness the rest of my kitchen counters are a cream color…also my diningroom table and chairs are a farmhouse style table with a hunter green base and the chairs are a ladderback chair painted in hunter green from Arhaus Furniture…loved it many years ago when I bought it but very tired of it now…so I have to get past the hunter green and visualize what can be instead of what is…thanks for your help too…I will keep you posted…Kath do you have a shade of behr paint you like in greens and/or yellows? Margie
by margie — 7/14/08 at 10:07 pm #
12. Hello,
Looking for coordinating pillows to my bedding was difficult because of the unique blend of burgundy and golds, so while shopping at Home Goods I found a very close goldish curtain of which I bought one, cut it in thirds, added it into the bottom of the burgundy curtains I had and took that last third of the curtain (along with the bottom of the burgundy curtains I cut) and will make throw pillows for my bed.
My bedroom is almost done and will look like my favorite designer from HDTV was here!
by Liz — 10/2/08 at 9:29 pm #
13. Hello Liz,
You’ve got the right idea. What a great way to solve your problem. I bet it looks fantastic!….. and so custom. Sometimes you have to work all the angles, and you did. Proud of you!
Thanks so much for writing and telling us of your creative problem solving. Great job!
Enjoy your designer room.
by Cathy — 10/3/08 at 4:09 pm #