Hey Y'all!
Yes, I know I just said Y'all. Seriously, I find myself resorting to saying Y'all a lot more recently. I guess that's what coming up on my two year anniversary of living in South Carolina (May 14th to be exact) has done to me! I am almost an honorary Southern belle, y'all. Too much?! Okay, on to my newest project that I am super excited about!
I forget where and when the idea to get pull tab curtains from Ikea and put fabric on them came to me, but it has been on my project to-do list for quite some time. I picked up the Ikea Tupplur Blinds in two different sizes, the longer version for the window over the kitchen sink and the smaller one for the only clear glass window in our master bathroom. The great thing about these blinds is that you can custom fit the blinds to fit any size window. All you have to do is get a size longer than your window and then cut the blind and pole down to size.
The installation process is pretty simple overall; Just make sure you get your measurements correct and leave enough clearance for the brackets and the spring mechanism on the left side of the blind. I won't go into all of the details of the installation process since Ikea gives an instruction sheet with the blinds, but as I said before be mindful of the measurements and check them multiple times before cutting the blind and pole! Better to go longer and keep cutting down in increments than cut too small the first time.
The reason I wanted this type of blind in the bathroom is because obviously being a bathroom we kept the blinds closed all of the time because the window opens up to our neighbor's house. However, with the Tupplur blinds covered with a patterned fabric, I was hoping it would brighten and liven up the bathroom as well as create an easy way to let in some light during the day and pull it down easily at night to maintain privacy. Also, if you notice the contractor installed the blinds on the outside of the window frame... which completely baffled and irked me every time I looked at it. Now the blind fits nicely in the window frame and all is well!
Master Bathroom Before:
Master Bathroom After: (They look super boring white but just wait!)
As for the kitchen, I really just wanted some fun pattern on the window that still allowed enough light in with out adding actual curtains that hang outside of the window.
Kitchen Before:
Kitchen after: (Again they look crazy boring being white!)
Once the hard part of installation was done, the fun part of picking fabric came in! I knew I wanted a large pattern that was classic and fun for both areas of our home. I ended up going with the damask pattern in a yellow for the kitchen to brighten it up and a gray for the bathroom to tie in the grey accents in our bedroom. I found both of these on Fabric.com, the yellow one here, and the gray one here. I bought 3 yards of each fabric and even found a coupon code online as well as free shipping for $30+.
Once the fabric came in, the next step was finding a way to attach the fabric and hope that the pull mechanism would still work with the added thickness.
What you'll need:
-Tupplur blinds
-Fabric
-Spray Adhesive (I used Elmer's craft bond.)
-Tacky Glue
-Iron
I started out by unrolling the blind on the floor and laying the fabric centered on top of the blind with at least 3 inches of excess on all sides. You'll notice the fabric does not reach the pole. This is okay because the curtain is only pulled out to the size of the window so it will not be seen. That being said, you could probably cut the fabric needed down to 2 yds., I just personally wanted to cover the majority of the length of the blind.
I made sure to keep the fabric centered by putting a small mark in the center of the blind (as seen below) since it would later be covered up anyways, and placed the center of my pattern directly over it. Once the fabric was centered throughout, I folded up about a foot section at a time, sprayed the adhesive, and then used my marks at the top and bottom to make sure I lined the fabric up before placing it on the glue and pressing from the center to the edges to set the adhesive on the fabric and reduce any puckering/ bubbles on the fabric.
At this point, the fabric was fully attached by spray adhesive to the Tupplur blind with about 3 inches of excess that was not attached to anything yet on all four sides.
The next step I will show you is how I dealt with the excess fabric on all four sides once the fabric was already attached to the blind.
For the top, near the pole, I folded the fabric down about 3-4 inches. I then folded down the raw edge about an inch and ironed it to create a seam.
With the 1" seam now ironed, I then sprayed a thin line of adhesive to the edge of the blind and pushed the fabric down again in the middle first moving to the outer edges.
I then cut the 3" excess on the two lengthwise sides of the fabric down to about 1/4". You want enough fabric to be able to place some glue and fold over the edge for a nice clean look from the front.
Next, I dealt with the 3" excess still remaining on the bottom end where the pull tab would be. FYI, there is a wooden rod in the bottom portion to make it easier to pull. I wanted to create a clean look from the front side again so I cut the fabric down to about 1" leaving enough for me to fold it over, tuck the raw edge under, and apply Tacky Glue to hold the fabric down.
The side of the pull tab looked like this (below) after I had glued all of the raw edges under and covered the width of the wooden rod.
Finally, the last step was to apply Tacky Glue to the two lengthwise sides with the now 1/4" excess of fabric, fold the fabric over, and press firmly.
When all was said and done, the backside looked like this.
The last thing to do was flip it over, admire it, and then roll it back up. The only issue we came across with re-installing the blinds with the new fabric cover was that the brackets needed to be moved down just slightly to allow the now thicker rolled up curtain to have enough clearance to be able to roll and unroll smoothly. Finally, it came down to whether the pull mechanism would work with the added weight and thickness and HALLELUJAH, IT DOES!
I really love the patterned look without bulky, dangling curtains. It really adds a little excitement to a once boring, constantly blinded window. While the Tupplur blinds are technically blackout shades and don't let in a ton of light when completely pulled down, using a light colored fabric with a pattern adds it's own kind of light to the room in my opinion.
Once I found the best way to attach the fabric for the bathroom curtain, it was much simpler the second go around for the kitchen. I think I took a good half hour off of the amount of time it took to complete even though it is actually larger.
How do you like it?! A whole new look for both rooms, eh?
Hope you enjoyed and if any of the instructions were confusing and you would like clarification while trying this out, please feel free to comment or email me at HousLoveDogBlog{@}gmail.com.
Peace,
