It’s Curtains for Me!

My laundry/scrap/sewing/crafting room has been at the bottom of the totem pole since we moved into our house this summer.  Not that I didn’t care what it looked like, but it was not the most important area on which I needed to focus.  (It hurts to say that scrapbooking is not a top priority.)  The laundry part of that room was the only one getting much action.  Way too much action, if you ask me! :)  Once the remodeling aspect of the room was finished, it just sat for a while, with all my junk sitting on every available surface.

Here is a picture of it when we first walked through the house.  Nice shelves, but the eye-crossing wallpaper and the fruity border just weren’t quite my style…  I especially liked the cat door under the desk.  Very convenient – the cat can go out, come back in, and be rubbing around your ankles as you sit at your desk.

This is the laundry closet – behind the little folding doors.  I like it.

Here is a picture of the room two weeks after we bought the house.  Dreadful.  The wallpaper had been put on unprimed drywall – a serious construction no-no.  When we pulled the wallpaper down, it took part of the sheetrock with it.  This meant that we had to mud the whole room lightly to fill in holes before we could prime and paint the room. 

You can see by the shreds of wallpaper on the floor, that it was coming off in less than acceptable-sized pieces.  If I recall correctly, there were only two layers of wallpaper in this room, so we were very happy about that, “happy” being a somewhat relative term.

I thought the painted pink plywood floor was a nice feminine touch, too.  :)

This is what it looked like after we finished repairing the walls and had the flooring installed.  Much better. 

Then I filled it up with all my scrapbook, sewing, stamping, crafting items. It no longer looked very nice.

As you can see, the shelves came in handy to store my books and scrapbook albums.  The countertop table was made by my step-father.  It has a cracked (and therefore free) piece of Corian on the top.  The table is actually on castors, so if I choose, I can roll it to another part of the room.  How neat!  It is high, so I can stand or sit on a tall stool to work, and it is a great place to scrapbook, sew, or cut out sewing projects. 

Since returning from our last round of meetings, I have made a concerted effort to get this last room in some semblance of order.  That meant sorting through all my scrapbook paraphanalia, sewing supplies, books, and the like.  I really wasn’t looking forward to that part of the job.  Ugh.  So much stuff! 

It now looks much better, since almost everything is in its place.  One notable exception being that the folding doors are still leaning up against the wall. (*Ahem)  I am sure that they will be re-installed soon, though.  Since it was looking so nice and clean, the windows, still ensconced in their protective plastic paint shields, stuck out like a sore thumb. 

I had seen some adorable reversible curtains at a friend’s house, and promptly asked her where she got them.  She replied that she had made them.  Even better!  When I got the chance, I found the pattern and got it from my local craft store.  I knew those curtains would be perfect for our house – especially for my special room!

My choice was Butterick pattern B5369, option D (top right).  These curtains were super simple to make!  I chose a rather wild paisley print in blue and green, and the ribbon ties would be green grosgrain with white dots. The reverse side was just a cream-colored muslin, providing  a little neutral area.

It took about two hours total to make the curtains (not counting the time it took for an extra trip to Wal-mart when I didn’t have enough ribbon) from cutting out to finish! I may put these in every room! Ha!

While my room is still a work in progress, it feels a lot more civilized now that I have some cute curtains hanging in the windows.  If I had it to do all over again, I would go with a slightly darker fabric for the reverse side, since you can see the seams when the sun shines through the windows in late afternoon.  However, I am very pleased with them overall, and can’t wait to upload pics of the entire room.  As soon as my doors are hung, that is!  :)