diy roman shade

I've mentioned it before, and I'm sure I'll mention it again, but our apartment has the worst windows in the entire universe.  (Could be true or might not be true -  I've searched a bit of the universe, but didn't go to Pluto after I heard it isn't deemed worthy to have planet status.)  When you stand next to our windows on a windy day, your hair will blow in the breeze - with our windows shut!

So it's no surprise that we needed to step up our game when it came to window treatments.  All of our windows now have some sort of heavy duty curtain or shade to help block out the wind or heat.  I think it's helping. Heck! How could it not?!  For (1) the windows look a bit more grown up and (2) they might actually help keep the house cool in the summer and warm in the winter - talk about a bonus to pretty windows!

Our office needed a shade of some sort.  This room gets the most sun during the day and doubles as our guest room on the rare occasion someone comes to visit.  This room needed some heavy duty room darkening power to help keep the house cool in the afternoon, but with the window in the corner of the room, butting right up against an adjacent wall, a curtain just wouldn't work, in my opinion (plus I just wanted an excuse to try out making a roman shade).  It needed a roman shade, so I looked on Pinterest (my go-to starting point for anything under the sun) and found this pin - an awesome tutorial on making your own roman shade.

I also found a kit (I ended up following the directions in both the kit and the Pinterest tutorial, they worked out well together for me - I needed a LOT of help, if I can do it, so can you, seriously) at Joann Fabrics with all the hardware, tube tape and nylon cord at a steal of a price (with a coupon from my phone, if you go to Joanns, download their app, there's always coupons to be used), so I bought that rather than having to search around for all the necessary components. I then purchased my fabric (from Fabric.com) and room darkening lining (on major sale from Joann's).  Then I procrastinated.  I procrastinated for about 6 weeks.  Everything was sitting on my dresser, ready to go.  And I procrastinated, enjoying the wind whistling through the window, tousling my hair.  And then I realized, this project is not going to do itself.  So I did it.

Did you read that? I actually did it!

I made a few mistakes along the way (I sewed the room darkening fabric to the back of the orange fabric before sewing the tube tape rather than sewing the room darkening fabric at the very end - so now if the shade is down during the day, you can see the sun shining in through the seams.  But no one will notice, except you and me.)  I also didn't secure the nylon cord to the bottom row of tube tape well enough (other than one knot, so really I didn't secure it at all) so I need to go back and sew the knots to the tube tape to ensure that the nylon cord won't go anywhere (one of the cords broke free after a few days, so yes, you'll want to secure them so that you don't have to take down your beautiful shade after it took you so long to make and put up - oh wait, that part of taking so long was just me).  But other than that, this tutorial that I used (see "pin" link above) is a great way to make a roman shade. And hello! have you seen how expensive a custom roman shade can cost at a store? This window is 46 x 46 and my total cost was $27.  While a custom 46 inch roman shade at The Shade Store is on sale for $321 right now.  Totally worth the 6 weeks of looking at the materials sitting on my dresser and the actual time it took to make the shade (which wasn't that long at all, probably 8 hours in total. I work slow.)

{Barkley ~ the foreman on the project}