DIY & Design: Lengthening Curtains & Nursery Makeover

afterThis nursery DIY project took me a while, mostly because life happens: baby needs to nap (and be changed and fed...and changed and fed), and momma needs to sleep too. Before our daughter Edith slept in her crib, I didn't bother with curtains in her room. There were too many other things going on. Now that she's napping regularly and sleeping every night in her crib, I wanted to add a little something to block out some of the light from coming in. We installed some old roller shades we had in the master bedroom and a pair of (*too short!*) white Ikea curtains and hung them on some rods Gram left in the room when she moved out (thanks, Gram!).

Here's the Nursery Before

collage_curtains_1_before

First, to anchor the room and make it look taller, I moved the curtain rods up on the wall, halfway between the ceiling and the top of the window frame. But this made the curtains that were already too short look much shorter!

DIY Tip: Curtains should always extend from more or less the top of the room all the way to the floor (with the exception of valances, of course).

I had some leftover fabric from my crib skirt that I used to extend the curtains to the floor. The crib skirt was made from 3 layers of fabric of varying widths. I had folded the 3 layers over on one end and sewed them together. For the curtains, I measured the extra crib skirt to the width of the curtain panel, cut & sewed up the edges, and then I simply stitched the crib skirt pieces to the bottom of the curtain (good sides together!). (Note: I did have to sew some extra "crib skirt" because I didn't have enough left over from when I put it on the crib.)

DIY Tip: If you're going to extend curtains, I'd suggest you pin the extended piece to the curtain and rehang the curtains on the rods to make sure you are extending the curtain all the way to the floor. I'd even suggest adding an inch or two to the length so your curtains don't "float" on the floor and appear too short. Of course, wash all fabrics before sewing to make sure they don't shrink!

I then added rope as a curtain tieback, but quickly decided that looked like the 90s and I needed something more substantial & a little more modern. Then, it came to me! I remember seeing pictures of DIY fabric flowers on Pinterest! I gathered some fabric scraps from the fabric I had used throughout the nursery, grabbed my glue gun, and got to work rolling and gluing! (Post a comment & let me know if you want me to make a video tutorial!)

Here's the After Picture! The only thing I would like to add would be some hooks to hold the curtains back along the side of the window trim. Maybe someday...
after

Now that my curtains are done, I finally am able to say I've completely finished one room in our house! Take a look at the pictures of our nursery redo! I'd love to hear what you think! Share with anyone interested!



2 Responses

  1. Stacey Harding

    Sarah your redo looks lovely and I am sure you feel proud of your efforts. You should. Making a home yours takes time to decide the direction you want to achieve and you have a little one around the house to ‘help’. You are doing a great job with projects and I look forward to seeing more.

    • Sarah

      Thanks, Stacey! I appreciate you’re interest and support! Merry Christmas!

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