Circle, Circle, Dot, Dot

A little less than a month before our sweet Mary Helen was born, Brandon and I were taping an episode of Today’s Homeowner that followed the installation of our new HVAC system. The episode aired across the country this past weekend.

We thought having a baby was the perfect time to improve the efficiency of our home. So we also covered several other small projects that will help with energy efficiency besides a new HVAC. Don’t want the baby to be too hot or too cold! One of those projects was sewing some Roman shades for the nursery.

Opening curtains/shades during the day in the winter allows the sun to help warm the room. But it’s just as beneficial to be able to close them at night to help trap the heat in and keep it from leaving your house. Obviously it’s not enough on it’s own, but working in tandem with an efficient HVAC system is a great and stylish energy solution!

It’s a fairly lengthy process, including some glue drying time, but it’s not a difficult project at all to make your own Roman shades.

I started by hemming a piece of fabric and a separate liner then sewing them together. Next I glued some dowel rods at 8 inch intervals to the inside back of the fabric.

The dowel rods give the finished shade the structure that really makes a Roman shade.

Once the glue dries, the shade is turned right side out and little plastic rings are sewn on the back of the shade to hold the drapery cords that will open and close the shade.

The drapery cord is then run through hooks on a 1×2 that’s stapled to the top of the shade, just like a set of mini blinds.

Before I hung my shades, though, I added a little “Chelsea” to it with some gold polka dots. I used some old CDs to layout my polka dots before tracing them with pencil onto the front of my shades.

Using leftover paint from the gold ceiling in the nursery and some fabric medium, I painted the traced polka dots. (I used this same fabric-painting technique on my outdoor area rug.)

And when the paint had dried and they were hung in the nursery with care, I had fully functional Roman shades perfect for a little girl’s room.

For full details on how to create Roman shades for any room in your house, watch my video over on todayshomeowner.com. (Click here to head there now!)

And that’s all the projects that are fit to blog for this itty bitty baby’s nursery. See how it all got started with my first nursery-related post here.

Back to regularly scheduled home improvement funness next time! Thanks for Checking In! ~ Chelsea