DIY IKEA striped curtains

Hello everyone, and welcome to my FenchHappyNest !!

I'm so excited to be sharing this first post with you. I've been hesitating for a while about starting a new blog, but I'll get back to that some other time. Today, I'd like to show you my last project in our living-room. For any of my "real-life" friends or family reading this, it's no surprise that I constantly change try to improve our home, so basically every time you guys come over, there's something new/changed/painted, etc.

And a lot of those changes happen when my hard working beloved husband is away on business (or this time at school), because :
- I can go "low-maintenance" on the house/meals without too much guilt
- I love to surprise him when he comes home !

He's been away since December, and he comes back next week (yeaaahhh !), so before that I decided to tackle our window treatment. Since 2006, we've had very boring neutral brown curtains, cheap Ikea white curtains, and cheap Ikea dark grey curtains. The white curtains were actually quite nice, but sadly they got paint stains and they shrinked after I washed them (even though I'm pretty sure I'd washed them before sewing the hem ... or not ...). So I had to find another solution and I bought the exact same Ikea panels but in a dark grey colour, just to give it a try. And let's just say it hasn't been the best decision I made ... It looked a bit dull. So my goal was to re-use them, and to make new curtains (almost) for free.

I've been spying this striped curtains trend all over Pinterest (thank you, Pinterest, I love you so much !), and although a lot of them are actually painted I figured I could use my trusty sewing machine to get the same look using what I had. And believe me, this easy project has been quite an adventure !

So, here's our window before:

And now:

Pretty big change right ? I couldn't believe my eyes when I hung the first panel ! I think it gives the room more personality and sophistication.

The construction was easy, but time-consuming.

Basically, I've just cut 4 stripes in grey and 4 in white. I've used the already hemmed grey bottom, and the white top, and I've cut 3 stripes in the same height in both colours. (bonus: I obviously have a lot of fabric leftover - for which I already have plans)

After that, I've sewn each stripe right sides together, and I've "finished" each seam. I did this because I didn't want to line the curtains, so the seams would have been exposed otherwise.

Easy right ? Well, without a few minor distruptions, it would have been a quick project ... Let's journey back and have a look at my week, shall we ?

Monday, 2pm. Kids are trying to sleep. I move my sewing machine and my ironing board into the living-room (again, one of the reasons I do this kind of stuff when Laurent isn't here), and I start mesuring, cutting and sewing. About 30 min later, my sweet little angel clearly won't nap today, which never happens !!

Have you ever tried to sew curtains with a crawling 9 month old around ? I do my best, but this is seriously slowing me down ...

Monday, 4pm. Oh no, I won't have enough grey thread ! I have to plan a trip to the fabric store, and squeeze it between errands, naps, meals, etc.

Tuesday. I work on it in the morning and during nap time. We go buy some grey thread when the kids are up.

Wednesday, 9pm. I was having a drink with our babysitter when it happened... Out of nowhere, our 6 year-old curtain rod broke .... it just broke !!! ARGGGGHHHH ! It's almost certainly something I've done wrong, but what ? Fortunately, no one was hurt when it fell. I got really sad that night. Not over the fu§#!*ing rod, but I felt exhausted just thinking about the whole "let's go get a new one alone with my 2 kids and hang it by myself" process.

Thursday morning. I go to the local DIY store and come back just in time to welcome 2 very pregnant friends of mine coming over to borrow Violette's birth clothes and crib. Lunch. Driving Arthur to the day nursery. Nap time for Violette, drilling time for me (great !). One of my hole isn't good, I have to drill another one. Nap time's over. I go back to the store to get another (I don't know exactly how you call it, I'm French !) rod support to reinforce the middle. I also buy new longer rods. I pick up Arthur. By 8pm, I'm done hanging the rod. And by 11pm, I'm DONE with the curtains !! At last !! But the thing is, because I've had to install a new rod, my original hem isn't quite right ! But who's looking ? No way I'm taking these down to fix it, it looks just fine as it is !

In the end, I love them ! And I'm so proud to have done this by myself, especially hanging a giant rod all alone, don't ask me how many times I cursed in front of my children that night ! Bad bad mother ...

So, what do you think ? Are you at all into the bold stripes trend ?

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have one week worth of laundry to fold ... Have a great sunday, and again thank you so much for taking a peek at my new blog !