My house? Neat and pretty?

Thursday, February 22nd, 2007 at 9:58 am

Being 29 weeks along with our sixth child I am very familiar with the whole nesting urge. This time around however, I have been extra nuts about it and I have been frantically emptying out our house of junk we have collected for many years. My oldest and I have been so successful at this last week by just doing a little at a time, one room at a time.
My living room, dining room, and bedroom were completely de-cluttered leaving me with walls that need painting and the ugliest window blinds ever. I don’t mind blinds but the kind our house came with are horrible, in my opinion. I found some cheap curtains for about $10 a panel and I was very excited, that is until I measured and counted how many panels I needed. I was looking at $40 for the living room, $20 for the dining room, and another $40 for my bedroom – NO WAY was I going to spend that kind of money on curtains.
Little did I know that my next de-cluttering project would bring me my answer, and cheap, too!
I found a flat sheet under my son’s bed. It was perfectly folded and had never been used in the many years since I purchased it. He needed curtains in his room, too, so I thought I would cut the sheet up and use it as it matched his and the baby’s bed set perfectly.
Now, if you look at a flat sheet you will notice that the top edge folds over to create that flat sheet look. I got the brilliant idea to just cut the edges of that fold on each side, sew it up, and slide a cheap curtain rod through it. I sewed the matching valance that came with the bed set to the top of it and made the cutest little curtains! This cost me nothing.
Tip #1 – de-clutter! You never know what treasures you will find hiding behind all that junk!

My husband liked the idea and purchased me a couple of king flat sheets he found on sale (we live about 25 miles outside of town so he has gotten used to picking things up for me on his way home from work). In about an hour, cutting the folded edges on the sides like I did for the first set, I made my living room curtains and my dining room curtains for about $40 with plenty of fabric left over to make curtains for our bedroom! Measuring the fabric I found that I would have been hard pressed to find it at a fabric store for less and it wouldn’t have come with that already folded down edge!
Tip #2 – Flat sheets can make cheap, super easy curtains!

In just a week my home is beginning to look manicured! Well, as manicured as it can get with a family of 7 living in it, lol.