The family room of our rental is like a greenhouse.  A massive southern facing window and then a glass door leading out to a small balcony flood the space with light. You can see this wall of windows in this picture from the day we moved in.  Mind you I love how bright it is, but even with temps hovering around freezing outside we’d be roasting in this room by mid-afternoon.  Plus being in a cul-de-sac means all of my neighbors can see in just as much as I can see out!  But most importantly my husband was concerned with how the sun would interfere with watching TV in the space! Of course a man would find that the most important reason to need curtains.

I didn’t want to spend a lot because I’m sure I’ll want to do something different in our new house so I went straight for my “Window Treatments” board on Pinterest.  And of course I found a perfect solution.  Drop cloth curtains.

I hit Home Depot and picked up three 16′ x 9′ clothes for about $15 each.  While browsing the size options a young man in the infamous orange apron asked if he could help me find anything.  He probably thought I was lost looking at my phone and then back at the shelf.  When I said I was just trying to decide what size I’d need to make curtains based on a tutorial I’d pinned he immediately asked to see what it would look like!  I was stunned.  But he was genuinely interested and seemed excited for my little project.  He wished me well and moved on to assist another customer.  I almost wanted to ask if he wanted me to bring in a picture of how mine turned out!

Most of the tutorials I found involved cutting and hemming, which I was hesitant to do not knowing what the dimensions of our new home will be or which room I’ll use these in when we move.  So I did what any DIY frugalista would do.  I laid them out on the floor folded them to the length I wanted and pinned them! (See what I mean about how bright it would get in there?!)

A couple of pins down the sides of the folded section and then across the top and I was ready to hang.  I dug out some curtain rings I had from window treatments at our old house and just clipped a cloth up on either side of the window.  I didn’t measure the spacing for the clips I just guesstimated by finding the center and then the 1/4 mark after clipping both ends.

I did wash each of the drop clothes before hand.  I probably should have ironed them too, but I don’t iron.  Seriously.  I don’t iron.  If something in our house needs ironing my husband does it.  It’s like my cryptonite.  So the end product is a little wrinkled, but I figure that will fade the longer they hang.And here’s the finished product.  I didn’t plan it but the folded excess hits right at the window ledge, creating the illusion that the darker color at the bottom is from the lack of light from behind at that point.  Wish I could claim that was sheer genius planning.  But it wasn’t.  I’m sure the dogs appreciate that they don’t prevent them from continuing their daily neighborhood watch.  And my husband appreciates being able to pull them closed to watch a movie!  I plan to make them a little more fancy at our next house with a stencil of some type once they are really hemmed! 🙂