That’s right, people. We are talking about faux-roman shades. F’roman. As in, they don’t move up and down… they’re just there for their good looks! Side note — OMG I just achieved the “they’re, there, their” trifecta!!!

But first… let’s talk about this photo below. What do you do if you don’t have enough wall space for your couch? Just slide your couch right in front of your “extra” french doors, of course! And then make really cute and inexpensive f’roman shades to blend it all together.

That was my solution, at least. We do love our two sets of french doors in the den, but with the fireplace on the adjacent wall and the entertainment center on the opposite wall, there just weren’t a whole lot of options for where to put that large piece of furniture. I’d like to tell you that we ran headlong and unapologetically into the land of breaking basic home functionality rules, but really, it just happened. We pretty much gave up on ever finding a couch to fit the space between the doors, and instead focused on finding one that would fit our budget. Equally challenging, I assure you.

Aaaand, I just now remembered that this post was supposed to be about curtains. So here we go! I used to have floor-length curtains on these doors, but they kept ending up getting crammed behind the couch or pushed out of the way, so I wanted a more practical solution without spending a lot of money. These simple f’roman shades turned out to be the perfect fix! Once I had collected all the supplies, I was able to get all the crafting done on a Saturday afternoon.

For the four shade panels, I used a 6×9′ canvas drop cloth that I cut into 4 equal pieces. Here’s a kinda messy phone drawing super-sophisticated diagram for you visual folks:

So after the drop cloth was all cut up, that left me with only 6 sides that needed hemming, since the outer 2 sides had the original hem. The tops and bottoms of each panel also already had the factory hem. I just sewed a little rod pocket at the top of each panel for the curtain rods. Honestly, if you wanted to go all “no sew,” a semi-finished look could easily be achieved with iron-on hem tape and hot glue. If you know me, you know I am a firm believer in the power of hot glue!

But I had the time to spare, so I hemmed the raw edges and added a 1/2″ rod pocket at the top of each panel.

It’s kind of hard to tell from the photo below, but I hot glued a 27″ wooden dowel into the bottom of each panel to make a stiff base for when they are tied up. I could have used another rod pocket here, but the hot glue was quicker, and I figured once it was all bundled up you would never see that part of the panel.

Then I took dark brown grosgrain ribbon (which I literally 2 days ago learned is NOT pronounced “gross grain”) and created loops about 1 yard each. I know that sounds a bit arbitrary, but I basically took two 4-yard spools of ribbon and divided them each into 4 sections, 36″ long per section, by folding them half several times then cutting at the folds. (Whenever possible, I break things up into equal portions to avoid measuring over and over. That could either be really smart or really silly, depending on the circumstance.) Anyway, when the ribbons are looped over the curtain rod, the shades will hang about 18″ from the top (36″/2).

So here is what they look like with the loops hung over the rods before the panels are all bunched up. Don’t you love that didn’t even bother to iron the wrinkles from the packaging? I think it adds… “texture.” Yeah, that’s what we’ll call it!

 

Then, starting at the bottom, I folded up each panel trying to keep consistent folds that were about 4″ wide. Once I reached the bottom of the ribbon loops, I smushed the panel against the glass with one arm to hold it in place while I slid the ribbon loops in place.

At first, it looked sort of uneven…

So I went all perfectionista and messed with it until the folds were nice and neat and all lined up.

And here’s what they look like from the side…

And this shot was just to show my handy magnetic curtain rods… made for just for steel doors!

And this shot is just to show off the mantle shelf over the couch, which I love!

So what do you think? I feel like they turned out pretty decent for getting 4 “f’roman” shades for under $50… even with the crazy couch-in-front-of-the-door situation. Sort of makes the couch and shades look like good friends that just wanted to be extra close to one another!

So what about you? Have you broken any sacred design rules lately? I’d love to hear about it so I can steal your great ideas borrow fellow my rule-breakers’ genius solutions!

Until next time, I’ll just keep making it up as I go and getting creeped on by my own cat… 🙂

XOXO