Faux Roman shade tutorial

A few weeks ago I completed a fun project for my kitchen. I shared it with Traci at Beneath My Heart, but in case you missed it, I want to show it off here. It's a completely no-sew faux Roman shade.

Here's exactly how I made it.

First I chose a fabric.  I considered something light-colored, but this is a west-facing window, so I wanted a dark background color to provide good heat-blocking on summer afternoons. I was tickled when I found this fabric:

This fabric looks cheerful and summery to me. As an added bonus, it's an outdoor fabric, so it won't fade.

After selecting fabric, I followed these steps to make the shade.  You can do it too!

Decide on the measurements you need. For this method, you'll need to end up with a shade that's the width of the inside of your window. The length of the shade would ideally be the length of your window, but it doesn't necessarily have to be that long. Simply cut your fabric to the correct width plus an inch on either side and the twice the length you want to end up with. (This is a no-sew method, so you'll need double the fabric length. If you want to sew a lining fabric to your shade fabric, you'll just need a single length of fabric and a length of lining.)

Lay your fabric out on a large work surface. You've cut your fabric an extra inch wide on each side; now turn the fabric under 1 inch on each side and secure the flaps with fabric glue or with Stitch Witchery. (For my shade, I needed the full width of the fabric plus a little extra, so I simply used glue to secure ribbon to the selvages of my fabric.

Once you have your fabric to the desired width with the sides finished however you like, double the fabric over, right sides together. Glue (or Stitch Witch, or sew if you like) the two cut ends together to create a seam.  (Note: just connect the two ends together.  You're creating a huge loop of fabric, not a flat rectangle of fabric.)

Turn the fabric right side out. Now you have a large rectangle of doubled fabric.

And now for the secret tool that makes this shade possible: the humble tension rod.

You'll need two or three rods. I bought white rods since my window trim is white, but you can buy rods in black or brass as well. These rods are adjustable to any length; just get rods that state that they are adjustable to the length you need. Measure the inside of your window frame to find the length you need, and adjust the rod using the manufacturer's directions. (**Notes: The insides of my window frames are not very deep, so I used an oval tension rod. Be very sure to get tension rods that are plenty wide enough for your window. Tension rods are extremely adjustable, but as you stretch tension rods out to their fullest lengths, they get weak in the middle. Also, before you try to make this shade, be sure that your window casing is smooth enough to hold a tension rod. Mine are smooth wood, so the tension rods stay in place with no problem.)

You should be able to find tension rods at stores like Target or Walmart, or you can order them from Amazon.com.

Insert the rod into one end of your fabric rectangle, like so:

Hang your fabric rectangle in the top of your window frame. (Remember that your rod needs to be just a little longer than the window, so that you have to apply some pressure to squeeze them into the window casing. It's that tension that will keep them hanging in place.)

See? My shade isn't exactly the right length, but I'm only going to use it as a stationary treatment at the top of my window, so it doesn't matter that it's not quite long enough.

Take a second tension rod and hang it a few inches lower than your top rod (mine is about 7 inches lower than the top rod), like so:

Now bring your fabric up to double over the second rod.

Now, if you like, repeat that process with a third tension rod. Here's how the shade will look under the folds. (Just ignore those cup hooks; they're still in place there from making a shade using Thrifty Decor Chick's method.)

You'll have to fiddle with it to get the folds just the length you like, but it doesn't take long. And if you use three tension rods, here's what you'll have:

A fun, faux Roman shade that's so quick and easy to create that you may want to make one for each different season!

What do you think? I'm loving it!  I made a some fun no-sew accessories to go with the shade: click here to read about those. Or click here to see more photos of my kitchen.

Updated to add: I finally found some trim to add to the sides of the shade so that it would be wide enough to cover the tension rods. Here's a peek:

It's a small difference, but I'm glad for the rods not to be showing anymore. Unless you have a very wide window like mine, this won't be a problem for you (and to be honest, the shades will lie flatter if you don't have to add trim to the sides).   Update: later I found a source of wider fabric that allows me to cover my wide window without having to add trim: a tablecloth!)

Check this out: Deidre from For Such a Time as This created a shade using my tension-rod method for her master bathroom. Deidre shows how you can space the rods further apart for the look of a Roman shade that's mostly lowered, thus covering most of the window. Isn't it lovely? Thank you, Deidre, for sharing your no-sew creation!

And look at these multiple windows treated by Jenny from Evolution of Style. Beautiful!  As you can see, Jenny used only two tension rods in her shades.

Isn't the blogging community the greatest place for sharing ideas?

**Update:  These Roman shades hold up wonderfully!  I'm still loving them two years later, and I've made another one for when I want a lighter look, and as you can see this one is wide enough without having to have trim on the sides.  You can read all about it here!  Here's a peek:

Later still, I made a simple farmhouse-style shade using a dropcloth. I simply used craft paint and painter's tape to create grainsack-style stripes (you can read all about that process here).

Years later, I updated my kitchen even more, but the faux Roman shade is still working for me! Here's how it looks now.

Another bonus of this window treatment is that it can be taken down and put back up pretty easily.  At Christmastime, the window looks like this:

Click here to read all about that window treatment, including the DIY Noel sign.  I like being able to change the look of the window at Christmastime, and it's so easy to put the Roman shade back up after the holidays.

What do you think?

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Designing a room: putting it all together

One of the world's best bloggers, Melissa from 320 Sycamore, is hosting a party to showcase how different people go about decorating a room. I'll join the fun and show you how I decorated my guest room.

I started the process of furnishing this room the way I always start: by thinking about what I already had. When we moved into this house, I had two twin beds (just metal frames--no headboards), a nightstand, an old dresser, a wing chair, and a valet. I also had a couple of French posters--just cheap reproductions, actually, but fun and colorful.

Those posters served as the inspiration for the room's decor.

First I made my own upholstered headboards for the beds. Mine aren't fancy--they're actually just sheets of plywood I cut to shape with a jigsaw, padded with foam and covered in fabric. If you'd like a tutorial on how to make your own, click here.

As you can see, the twin beds are side by side at one end of this long room, with a poster hanging above each bed. The fleur de lis hanging above the lamps was a TJMaxx clearance find ($3.00). The oval mirror is one I bought back in 1996 at Bombay Company (I still miss that store!). I like the way it looks hanging just over the nightstand. I keep dried hydrangeas in a vase on the nightstand everyday, but when we have overnight guests I always put fresh flowers here. I love to see the flowers reflected in the mirror.

The window treatments are simple balloon valances I made from a lovely brown floral fabric.

I've had the matelasse coverlets on the bed for many years. I simply made throws from the same fabric as the headboards and pillows from the same fabric as the valances. I think it all ties together nicely.

Other accessories in the room include this wall of plates and paintings by Maurice Utrillo.

The paintings are prints from the early 20th century. I found a collection of prints in an antique store for $5.00. From that group I chose these four Paris street scenes. The prints are all slightly different sizes, so I had these professionally framed. Total framing cost was $88.00. The plates are Haviland china made in France; I found them at my local Goodwill store for 68 cents apiece. I simply glued a sawtooth hanger to the back of each plate to hang them on the wall.

The other end of this long, narrow room holds the wingback chair and dresser I already owned. The dresser belonged to my parents for 30 years. In 1991, they gave it to me; I painted it white to serve as a changing table for my babies. I spray-painted it black for use in this room.

Beside the wing chair is a stack of hatboxes I found at a local antique store:

The lamp on the dresser was a Target clearance find ($9.08). The prints above the lamp are reproductions of French travel posters. I bought them in France for just a few dollars--a very inexpensive souvenir. They just happened to fit perfectly in frames I had in my attic.

The blue shutters were a $3.00 find at my local Habitat for Humanity ReStore. They started out looking like this:

and ended up looking like this:

One of my favorite things about this guest room is the en suite bath. The black and white tiled floor seemed to cry out for some color, so I was thrilled to find a red toile for $7.99/yard at my local discount fabric store. You can read this post to see how I made this shower curtain with my extremely elementary sewing skills.

The bathroom accessories include a TJMaxx clock ($15.00) and four little reproduction advertisement prints I found at Target's One Spot years ago. They came in a package of 4, so each print was just 25 cents!

All together, I spent about $250 on this room, plus furnishings I'd owned for years. I think it turned out to be a functional, comfortable, and attractive room.

In case you missed it, you should check out Melissa's series of posts on her own process for putting together a room. It's wonderful!

The significance of insignificant things

As I sit down to write this, it's 1:45 P.M. on April 26, 2011. Exactly two weeks ago, I was talking with my husband's heart surgeon about how things had gone in the Operating Room. I thank you all for praying for Jack and for our family during a really difficult time.

For weeks now, my heart has been full of matters of life and death, hope and despair, assurance and doubt. All important matters, to be sure; all matters with which to be wrestled. I'm grateful for the chance to consider such weighty issues; I'm grateful for friends who will help me; I'm grateful for a God who's willing to meet me right in the middle of my struggles.

You know what I'm thinking about right now, though? I'm thinking that it's good to take a break from weighty issues. I'm thinking that it's good to ponder non-weighty issues as well as weighty ones.

So I'll show you a little project I've had going on the past couple of weeks. Thanks to my darling friend Melissa of 320 Sycamore, I grew some wheat grass!

Yep. It may sound silly, but one little touchstone of sanity for me in the past few weeks has been growing some decorative grass. I nurtured it to green fullness in an ugly old 9x13 pan. It probably looked crazy for me to have that on my kitchen island while my husband was in the hospital, but every time I came home, it was fun to see that my grass had grown.

I wish I could say I did something elegant with it, but really I didn't. I put some of it in a planter by my kitchen window:

And I put some of it in a basket with my mother's collection of Easter eggs.

I'm not going to win any awards for creativity or artistry, I know. But it sure has been good, in the midst of highly significant events, to concentrate on something as insignificant as growing grass. A bit of balance, you might say!

How about you? Is there something small that helps you find balance?