Raise the Roof

Happy Monday! I hope y'all had a good weekend. Don't you just hate how fast they go by? Ugh.

So I decided to take my own advice....(which, by the way, I have done in every other room in our house, except this one, so don't get onto me)....and raise the curtains to the ceiling. As you all know....or should know....raising the curtains to the ceiling, especially in a small room, makes the room appear larger and taller and just all over more wonderful :) I also try to hang my window treatments wide, so it gives the illusion that the windows are that much larger too.

When we first moved in, I needed a quick fix for our front room's french doors. I had a curtain rod and some curtains from our old place, so I just threw them up so we could get some privacy. About a year later...they were still there. I loved them, but they bugged me every time I went into our front room, but I couldn't raise them higher without getting new window panels or freaking out by putting new holes in the wall, so they just stayed there:

I finally got the courage to make more holes in my walls and raise them up to the ceiling. I figured the panels would just cover the holes anyway. Right?Yeah...I love quick fixes :)

Since the panels were too short, I just added some fabric I got from Joanns to the bottom of the white (and  of course, Joanns was having a 50% off sale on their red tagged fabric, so as usual....I got more than I really needed. So that means, more sewing projects for me!)

With all the fixes, here's our front room today:

It totally makes the room look more grand. And it brought a whim of formality.

With adding the fabric to the bottom, I wasn't liking the tabs on the top ~it was just too casual, so I just folded them and secured them under to look like this:

 

This was sooo simple to do, I have done it with almost every window in our house, mainly because I hate sewing curtains....and this totally takes care of that.

I measured where I wanted the panels to hit the floor....and made sure both panels were exactly the same to match up the line where the white fabric stops and the blue begins.

I then folded the panel over, measured and secured it with cafe curtain rings:

To keep the pleated look all the way up to the top and so they wouldn't fall over, I secured the upper portion with a pin and bent it back towards itself (this totally could have been down with a safety pin...but I couldn't find any):

If you are going to do this....make sure each panel is identical, so you don't have one panel higher to the ceiling than the other...I think I measured my 'pinch' with the cafe curtain rings at about 2" from the top. It took me ohhhh about 4 or 5 times of putting the rod and curtains up, then taking them back down to get a perfect measurement. But it was worth it.

Yay! Now I can actually go and sit in the room and not stare sorely at the window treatments :)

Now....I'll stare happily :)

Here I did the same thing with just about six yards of fabric in our guest bedroom.

I hung these ones pretty wide, so I'll probably fill in the empty space with two more panels or some bamboo blinds:

These are the french doors in our dining room. I did the same thing with about six or seven yards of fabric...total no sew curtains.

Love it!

(don't mind the pheasant tail in the top corner....I guess its his house just as much as it is mine.......)

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DIY Ceiling Medallion

Happy Easter everyone! I hope you're enjoying your holiday :) We're just relaxing around here so I figured I would share with you one of my recent projects that is oh so easy to do and will totally make an impact in your room (at least I think so).

I am in love with ceiling medallions. I think they are so beautiful, but a little traditional. My house isn't quite what you would call 'traditional' but there are a few traditional items in it, so a normal (beautiful) medallion just wouldn't look quite right:

So, here is my version: 

I just got to work with my Cricut (which I also loooove). I cut out multiple designs in smaller sizes and played around with how they looked and their configurations until I found the one that I absolutely loved.

Next I cut it out as large as I can on some scrap paper and placed it on the ceiling to get an idea for how it  would look:

And of course, I decided it would look awesome. So I got to work:

I used the Cricut again to cut out the same design on some black vinyl, used the transfer paper to help (this is totally necessary, or else the design sticks to itself and almost everything else and gets rather annoying):

I just removed one paper design and put the vinyl in its place and rubbed it onto the ceiling.

One down ~ two to go.

And done:

So, here it is before, plain and boring:

And after:

FYI: this will totally work out your arms and shoulders, it took me about an hour to do, half of it with my arms above my head rubbing and pressing ~ so its a good two for one :) You get a beautiful ceiling medallion and a workout!

Obviously this can be accomplished by also using a stencil, but that just means your arms will be above your head for that much longer....This was my quick solution ~and not that I want to remove it any time soon, but just in case I need to, I can just peel it off.

Now....on to the other rooms of my house....Next~the dining room chandelier.

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