We Have Drapes!!

As most of you know, since you have been to our home, that we have not had drapes or curtains in the front room for almost three years. The problem arose after we refinished the wooden floors and I repainted the walls. The color was completely a new color and our old drapes did not match. We took down the old ones and gave them to charity. Then I realized there was going to be a problem, as every pair of drapes I picked out or brought home to try, Kevin did not like them. He was insistent on having pinch pleated drapes that could go on the traverse rod like the old ones. He wanted to be able to open and close them with the little pulley on the end. That is all well and good, but unfortunately those are not really the style now, at least for retail purchase. They have to be custom made. We have both searched and searched for almost three years. We have found some internet sites where you can order custom pinch pleated drapes, but that made me a little nervous as I was afraid I would miss measure or hate the fabric once they actually came. It’s so hard to tell the true colors on a little swatch on your computer monitor. So again the waiting game was on. Not even to say the cost was prohibitive. To order them off the internet would have been minimally $1000.00. So again, we wait, and discuss, and argue about it. Then during the Christmas holidays when all the retail stores were vying for our hard earned money, everything was on sale. I noticed in one of the circulars that J.C. Penney’s had all their drapes on sale. I actually convinced Kevin to go to the mall and have a look. Of course he asked to see the pinch pleated drapes. They did have one display of them, but they were the old fashioned kind of brocade and only came in colors of ivory, white, gold and avocado. He thought that would be just fine, but I said, “No way.” We left empty handed. Then I came up with this temporary solution that I blogged about here. It certainly wasn’t pretty, but at least made Kevin happy that I could now sit in the dining room without being on display to anyone that drove down the street. Then about a week before Christmas, I was in one of our Wal-Mart Super Stores and just had a premonition to go down the drapes/curtain isle. As I was just browsing, I came across these perfect panel drapes. The only problem, they were not pinch pleated drapes. I really liked them and thought about them for a couple of days. Then I asked Hester if she was up for a secret mission. I had actually planned to just buy them, with new rods and then one day when Kevin was off doing something we would just change them out. Hester agreed that it was a good plan and we should do it. A couple of days later Kevin and I were in Wal-Mart again. (I hate to admit that I shop there that often as I do really hate Wal-Mart, but they sure do make it convenient.) I told him, “Come here I want to show you something.” So I took him over to the drapery isle and showed him the panels. It was a miracle! He liked them too. Then I told him the bad news, that they were not pinch pleated. We would have to change out the hardware too. At this point he was so excited that we were even close to agreeing, he said, “I think we should buy them.”  I told him I only wanted to buy one package and take them home to make sure we liked the way they looked before we bought enough for the whole two rooms. Amazingly enough we did like it and decided to go back to Wally World for the third time, and I might add it was about 11:00 p.m. by this time. We bought seven packages. When we got home, I got the crazy notion that maybe I could turn the panels into pinch pleated drapes. We have some older drapes in the den that are pinch pleated, so I got up on the chair to get a better look. Thinking to myself, “I think I can do this. It’s just literally pinched up fabric and sewn into a pleat.” By this time it was midnight, but I was determined to try. So off to the sewing machine I went. I had to come up with a plan to make them uniform in distance in the pleat. I finished one panel and found the old drapery pins and hung it up. It looked pretty good, but when I pleated it, the panel was now not wide enough. I stopped for the night. The next day. We decided we liked it and wanted to buy more panels so we would have enough to do all the windows in the living room. We thought we had bought all the panels at the Wal-Mart closest to us as we had emptied the peg, so we went to one of the other stores. We were dismayed to discover they did not carry the full line of drapes. I then checked another store, same story. I had to go to Canyon for another project and decided to check their Wal-Mart. Same story, no drapes. Now we were in a real dilemma! We did not have enough to cover all the windows and I had already started cutting and sewing the ones we did have. Kevin suggested we go back to the store we purchased them at and see if they had put out more or maybe they could order us more. We needed three more panels. We went back to the Wal-Mart and looked at the display. Sure enough it was empty! I had already walked off when Kevin said, “Are these them?” I wheeled around and took a closer look. Sure enough there were three more panels of the ones we needed hanging in the wrong place. Now you may call that a coincidence, but I call it a miracle! We bought them and headed home. Remember this is the week of Christmas, when I had nothing else to do! I know, I’m justifiably crazy! I finished the drapes for the front window and hung up the panels in the dining room.  Finally, this week I had time and energy to finish the project. Yeah! We have drapes, pinch pleated, striped, perfectly matching drapes. Here are some  photos. Come by and see for yourself. We love them, even if they are homemade.

The packages of panels, just waiting to be sewn into pinch pleated drapes.

Sewing away.

My favorite part of sewing, ripping out!

Re-sewing, make sure it’s straight this time.

See! Pinch pleats!

Now where’s those hooks. I actually had to buy some and boy are they hard to find!

Steaming out the wrinkles.

Don’t they match the paint perfectly? They look pretty good if I do say so myself. I hope I don’t break my arm patting myself on the back!

Ah, the evidence of the Red-neck solution!

Taking down the hooks.

And now we have drapes and all is well in the Hare household again.