Despite appearances, I am no Suzy Homemaker.
For one, I don’t sew. My lowest grade in school was in eighth-grade sewing class. I made this crooked orange dress. All the buttons fell off after the first washing. Worse, I had to model this monstrosity in a school fashion show. I’m still in therapy over this. Mrs. Lasansky, my home economics teacher, told me she was happy I was doing well in English, and counseled me to pursue any career but homemaking.
All through high school and college, I hemmed my pants with masking tape, which was not the only reason my mother called me a disgrace to the family. But all this was good training for my guest-room drapes.
The story of my guest-room drapes is a tale of what happens when a cheap, determined woman who can’t sew finds a fire sale and a glue gun.
The guest room’s large window had wood blinds, for privacy and light control, but needed drapes to look finished. The price of custom drapes is why many people get dressed lying down. Let’s see, do I want drapes or a Hawaiian vacation? Point of fact: A friend recently told me that her interior designer gave her a bid for living room, dining room and family room drapes. The bid was $27,000. “Is that too much?” she asked me.
Hack, gasp, wheeze.
Still, I was determined to dress the guest room window for next to no money. I knew the fabric I wanted – the same coffee brown toile as the room’s duvet cover. And I knew the style – simple, no layers of frou-frou. These were bedroom drapes, not a baptism gown.
When I saw that the catalog company where I’d ordered the duvet cover had put the discontinued matching sheets on fire sale for $29.99, I snapped up two full sets. I’d need two top sheets, one for each side panel. (Sheets are a non-sewer’s best friend because they have four finished edges.)
At The Great Indoors, I found iron rods and rings that attached with clips. No sewing required! I got clips styled like black iron leaves, two tie-backs, and brackets that would extend the rod more than 4 inches from the wall to clear the header of my wood blinds.
Back home, I hung the hardware myself, which made my family nervous. If I ever want complete solitude, all I have to do is walk through the house with a hammer and ladder. My husband gets an urgent business call. The kids go to their rooms and turn up their music, and the dogs dive under a bed.
Next, I clipped on the drapery rings, hung the “drapes” and brought my family out of hiding to admire my handiwork. “Looks like you hung sheets,” they said. In the honest light of day, the sun showed through them like a cheap dress worn without a slip.
They needed to be lined. Crestfallen, I worried I might have to hire a seamstress after all.
Desperation spawned another idea: I bought two ivory, full-size flat sheets at a local bedding outlet. I glue-gunned them to the patterned sheets using nickel-sized dots of glue every 6 to 8 inches. I also put a few dots of glue down the sides of each panel. On the window again, the lining gave the drapes the body and opacity they needed to look like the high-quality drapes they were not.
Total investment: $161.
OK, so making drapes with a glue gun might seem tacky, but I’ll bet if Mrs. Lasansky could see these drapes, even she would be proud.
Marni Jameson is a nationally syndicated columnist who lives in the Denver area. You may contact her through marnijameson.com.
Drapes in four easy steps
If you’re the crafty type and can sew, you can move on to Ask Amy now. But if you can’t sew and want to make an inexpensive window treatment, here’s a recipe for Marni’s Glue-Gun Drapes:
The Panels: Find sheets you like, twin or full, depending on how wide you want the panels. I like double-gathered, so if you want to cover 40 inches of wall, get full sheets, which are about 80 inches wide.
The Lining: Secure two flat ivory sheets and glue-gun the backs of the ivory sheets to the backs of the main sheets. To avoid puckering, use dots of glue, not stripes, and don’t glue the bottom edges. Bonus: If you make a mistake, you can easily pull the sheets apart. The look is truly seamless.
The Hardware: Buy an adjustable rod, brackets, clip-on rings, and tie-backs (optional). Measure and pencil mark where the screws will go. If drills make you nervous, tap a nail (use one slimmer than the screw) in the wall where you want screws, then twist the screw in. Hang your rods, and attach drapes with clip- on rings.
If you want to get fancy, glue on some fun trim. Then – brag!
