Jananas

When I first moved into my house (and my bedroom onto the third floor), I picked up some cheap Ikea curtains. I was a student, they got the job done, it was a good match. An added benefit was that their red colour made for some awesome light to nap in during the afternoons. However, after eight years they were starting to fall apart – the metal rods came out, the string/ties had all broken, and the fabric was really faded (especially on the side facing the sunlight).

Over the last few years I’ve begun the shift away from university student and the Ikea lifestyle towards quality. (As an aside, I’d rather pay more money for good quality and have something for life than pay money for crappy quality and the ‘cheap’ disposable lifestyle). I only have a few pieces of Ikea furniture left and am slowly replacing things as they wear out/break (there’s no point in spending the money before you have to). These curtains were getting close to that point.

I had some extra fabric lying around the house. It was leftover from when we sewed the backing onto Jason’s ginormous Fibonacci afghan. Its a basic medium gray cotton jersey, so we thought that it would make a good neutral curtain. I like the room to be dark (as in pitch black) when I sleep, so we wanted to find something to line the back. I had an old navy fitted sheet lying around so we cut the elastic out and used the cotton sheet to line the back. The end result was some basic, very dark curtains for about $10 total. Thankfully my roommate has some seamstress skills, so she was able to whip these up for us in about half an hour.

Jason had fun getting to hang the new curtain rods ($10 in hardware). Our bedroom is on the third floor of the house, so we have lovely sloped ceilings that make it difficult to place furniture.

This is a photo of one of the two curtains all finished and in place. There’s a small hook on the right hand side to tuck the curtain to the side when we want light in the room. The first night we had these up we were amazed at just how dark the room was as a result. I’m happy that we were able to make something better than what we would have been able to buy and at a lower cost ($20 total for both). I’m also happy that I got exactly what I wanted (a dark, dark room) while we simultaneously used up fabric that otherwise would have been donated to Goodwill.

The chair in the picture is one from my Nana’s house. It and its non-matching partner (a gold brocade chair) sat on either side of the fireplace in her living room the entire time I have memories of her house. She moved into a retirement community at the same time I moved into my house. I was able to save a lot of her furniture from being sold and get to keep the memories and our history in the family. I like that continuity and hope to some day be able to share stories with the next generation about their great grandmothers.

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• Antique Spinning Wheel & Yarn Winder
• Homemade Lilac Jelly
• The Dilemmas of Working