Easy Valances — Pictures

I mentioned I made curtains for the whole house. Correction: I made valances. We’ve lived in our house for a year now (today, as a matter of fact). It’s about time.

All along, I’ve wanted to make window coverings but didn’t know what to do. The windows all came with blinds, which are convenient at times, but really don’t look that good. We live in such a rural location that most of the time the blinds are up, but there are those occasions when we pull them down, so I didn’t want to lose that capability. And what I thought was that I would have to take the blinds down in order to put up curtains. I just discovered this isn’t true.

There is enough room in front of the blinds brackets to insert a tension rod in the window box. Since we don’t have that much of a privacy issue, I settled on valances. They cover the blinds but leave the windows clear to gaze on the wildlife that surrounds us. We still have the use of our blinds if we need it.

I started in the girls’ room. Their valance comes from a antique-looking floral printed sheet I found last week at the thrift store. I love shopping for sheets at thrift stores — so much fabric for just a couple dollars! And I love the vintage looking prints.

I dug in my fabric bins for curtain fabric I bought 2 years ago. I used it for the valances in Mikah’s room.

The kitchen, living room and dining room windows came next. This fabric in our favorite shade of green — sometimes called celery or sage — was on clearance awhile back and I bought a couple yards.

I also made valances for the family room out of a black and tan large gingham print, but I don’t have the tension rods to hang them. Yesterday, I found a floral print sheet at the second-hand store that will be perfect for making the valances for my bedroom. As soon as all those are up, I’ll update this post with those pictures.

Related Post: How to Make Easy Valances