DIY kitchen curtains

With our kitchen reno plans on hold until after the baby is born and I'm back at work, I've basically been ignoring that giant eyesore of a room. Then last week Adam reminded me that it still might be nice to have some curtains on the windows.

The back of our house faces the parking lot of a small, multi-unit building. We plan to build a privacy fence that will allow us to still view the trees and water beyond the parking lot, while also enjoying all the light that our windows let in. But until we get around to building said fence, curtains are a great temporary fix. One of the windows is part of a hideous old door, so as an added bonus, the new curtain helps disguise it until we get a pretty new door later this year.

You may remember the curtain panels I purchased at Ikea several weeks ago. I turned one into a door for our basement storage room and the second panel was easily transformed into two kitchen curtains (it's basically the gift that keeps on giving).

The panel was only wide enough to use its existing top for one of the curtains, so I decided to use it for the window in the door. Once I figured out my measurements (making sure to include extra height and width for my hems and some gathering), I made several pencil marks along my fabric and used a straight edge to draw a line for cutting (obviously I struggle with cutting straight lines).

After cutting my panel to size, I measured, pinned and ironed my hems. Since I was using an existing panel, I only needed to hem two edges (one side and the bottom) and I copied the width of the existing hem so that everything matched up.

Last step: sewing. For the window above the sink, I basically repeated the steps from the first curtain, but this time I sewed a channel for my rod along the top of the panel. Again, I made sure to include several extra inches of width to allow for some gathering.

{ugly door partially hidden by a pretty new curtain}

 It's hard to see the curtain panel with all the light coming into our kitchen (a good problem to have, I know), so here's a picture I snapped at night.

{I love how the sheer panels still let in lots of light}

{The cafe rod hides the view of the parking lot, but still lets in lots of light. Sadly, it doesn't hide the remnants of my tile backsplash-removing job. I need to do something about that.}

Sure, the door's still ugly and so is our kitchen, but a little extra privacy is always nice, right?