Project #12 - Nursery Curtains (Finished)

Have you SEEN the price of curtains these days? Simply put... the cost is absolutely LUDICROUS! I should have remembered this from the time I wanted to put roman blinds on three of our windows (all small) and it was going to cost around $450. Needless to say, I found a tutorial on the web and managed to make all three for under $50.

Anyway, a couple of weeks back I thought I should get onto making some curtains for the nursery (and probably the other two bedrooms too) so off I trundled to spotlight. I knew I wanted sail top curtains (the ones with the oversized eyelets) and I also knew that I wanted them to serve one main purpose - to block out some light.

I managed to find some that I liked for $99 that met both of the above criteria. To make things even more appealing I had a 'spend $100, save $40' voucher so I figured I might as well get them all and save a little bit of money too.

I picked up three packets (one for each room) and calculated that it would cost me around the $260 mark (and yes, I realise I could have asked two of my friends to go in with their voucher and buy a pack each to save more money).

Anyway, on my way to the register I was reading the package, when I realised that there was only ONE curtain in each pack! ONE curtain for $99 - RIDICULOUS! Not only that, but who in their right mind would only want to purchase half of a curtain set *sigh*.... back to the drawing board.

By then I had decided that $300 was the maximum I was willing to pay for all three sets of curtains and that I would keep my eyes open for curtains on sale. It didn't take long. In the very next Spotlight catalogue they had Magic Drape material reduced from $34.95 a metre to $24.95 a metre. I calculated that the 9 metres I needed would come to around the $225 mark, which was perfect! Sure, I had to make them myself but it was under half the price of the other curtains.

When I took the Magic Drape fabric to the counter the lady advised that there were a couple of dirty marks on the outside of the fabric which were likely caused during transportation, but that they should come out when rubbed over with a damp cloth. I had a look and sure enough it looked like they would come out easily, but why should I have to pay for the extra work that would take? I told her I would buy the fabric, but only if she could discount it further.

I was expecting her to discount the first metre (if anything at all), but she advised she would drop the price of the first 6 metres to $19.95 and then charge me the sale price of $24.95 for the remaining 3 metres. That resulted in the total cost being closer to $195 - a saving of $405 on what the other curtains would have cost me!

Anyway to cut a really long story short I sewed the nursery curtains this afternoon, ironed them and then hung them and this is how they turned out:

At the moment they are a little plain, but I am making a set of small bunting flags for this window too which I think will add a nice splash of colour to the window. We are also going to hang some sheer curtains as well to soften the light in the room. Hopefully it should be all done by the weekend!