DIY Door Curtain
If you are like me, you usually find the perfect curtain in the most wonderful print or color but the length is wrong. No matter how many times you measure your window.
I always find the most amazing curtain that’s either too short or too long.
Never the right length.
Add in custom french doors and custom windows and the length will never be found in stock in a store. I wish our dining room was standard sized, but without looking standard.
So without needing to raise or lower the curtain rods every time you want to change the curtains, or putting a drop hem in by sewing the curtains, I came up with a better solution. Custom curtains.
I bought too long of curtains.
Well, I didn’t intend for them to be too long when I purchased, but it happened.
I had a really full cart already with 2 kids at Ikea and they were an impulse purchase, but one that I really liked. But in all honesty, I don’t ever mind a DIY project either.
Making the mistake to go to Ikea on a Sunday was the first issue. It was full of people and my Mom radar was on super high as I didn’t want anyone to steal them when I was too busy looking at the length of the curtains too long.
So I grabbed the first 3 panel curtain packets I saw, and went with it. These are the ones I grabbed.
I also thought that our windows and doors were at least 96 inches long… not remembering that we had custom heights for them making them take longer to get in during construction. (I don’t know how I could forget that)
Anyways, I got the curtains home, put them up, and realized that they are a good 8 inches too long…
I did what every person would do.
Contemplated taking them down, raising the curtain rod, and sewing them. We have to have a window treatment for the french doors that lead from the open concept kitchen and living room so these door curtains weren’t negotiable.
I also put up another set of curtains panels which are 64 inches and you can see in the photo they are too short.
Taking them down isn’t an option since we wanted to watch tv without a glare and shutting out the light at night.
DIY Curtains Without Sewing
Raising the curtain rod also entails fixing the drywall and having it repainted.
Both things we’ve done about 100 times now it feels like in this process. And it’s more expensive than purchasing all new curtains – so that’s also out.
With the pandemic happening and stay at home orders in place, taking them to get hemmed professionally are not options.
So, I took to Amazon to see if I could find some double sided fabric tape to make it work.
And thank goodness Amazon came to the rescue! The tape arrived in 2 days and I set out to fix them up using a diy no sew method. I have about 8 inches to hem to make them barely drag the floor, which I think will be fine.
Personally, I believe this will work with any curtain length – valance, kitchen curtains, cafe, longer curtains, etc.
Two rolls of this tape from Amazon should do the job. If you have fewer curtains, you may need less. If you have more, see how many it will take. Other options were available, but the shipping time was longer, and we couldn’t stand the curtains being so long anymore. Here’s my step-by-step process.
I simply laid the curtain across our countertop and put a towel under it to ensure I didn’t damage the butcher block. I moved the top edge out of my way in order to protect it as well. You can also fold the top to move it out of the way. If you have an ironing board, that probably works better. We don’t, so I improvised with what I had on hand.
And the other thing you need is an Iron. We borrowed one from my Mother In Law because we only have a steamer for our clothes.
I measured out how far I wanted to bring the curtains up from the bottom hem. In my case, that was 8 1/2 inches. I put the tape at about 7 inches so I could fold the fabric, iron, and cut a new hem. I made sure to measure from the top and bottom to ensure a straight cut on the raw edges.
After cutting the hem and realizing how much new fabric was left on the folded edge, I decided to cut the new line so it wasn’t as thick looking when hanging. I reduced the edge of the fabric to just a few inches.
Final Product: Perfectly Fit
The final product is a curtain that’s not dragging the ground and custom fit to your door/window!
I will play around with the lengths as our floors aren’t completely level. For me, each door and window will need a different length.
One note – cute doggie not included 🙂
Another note, my hubby decided he wanted to help with the project and didn’t heed my instructions to cut the extra fabric, which I did mention above, and you can see the reason. Look at Champ’s face and front area versus where is tail is. The extra fabric is a bit crazy!
If you don’t want to mess with curtains and you for sure don’t want to whip out the sewing machine, you can always check out window film as an option for a window covering. I have used window film on other properties that you can tie into the home decor. They work great as DIY curtains that don’t need washing, don’t ever get dirty, and don’t have a stretched rod pocket.
Hopefully this is something you find helpful and useful in your home when doing projects or redesigning your space.
Let me know in the comments if you have other ideas to make a curtain fit a space you have.
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