#85- Painting Chevron Curtains

 I’ve always envisioned the Playroom as a space that was creative, fun and cheerful, without being too childish or cutesy, which is why I settled on the green, orange, and dark blue color pallet.  From the start I pictured light, grass green walls, a fun, multi-colored rug, pops of orange accessories and a bold, geometric print curtains in blue and white.  This last part proved to be a little more tricky than I thought.  In all of my favorite local fabric stores, and even my online searches, I just couldn’t find the right bold pattern, deep blue color or price that I was looking for.  Any of the modern geometric prints I could find on Fabric.com were running around $35 a yard, which is as out of my league as Justin Timberlake. (Cry Me a River)  I even tried searching for some table cloths that fit the bill after my success with the Guest Bedroom Curtains, but alas, no dice.

Would you kill me if I said for the hundredth time that I turned to Pinterest for inspiration?  And that I was awarded with this amazing tutorial for painting your own Chevron curtains?  Since I just finished painting the Mona Lisa of rugs for the Laundry Room, I was pretty full of myself confident that I could paint these curtains as well.  And the fact that I had an extra pair of Vivian white curtain panels from Ikea hanging out in the closet to return?  Fate I tell you.

I started by measuring my line with my drywall square and a pencil, and then connecting the dots with some left over painter’s tape from Bath Crashers.  (So far spending $0 on this project.  Bouyah!)  To make the corners of the lines perfectly straight, I used a large chisel to help me tear the tape clean.

The only tricky part was making sure that I was accounting for the 2" of masking tape when I made all my lines equal spaced.  I just had to make sure that I was always placing the tape inside of the lines that would be the white stripes.  As I tore off little bits of tape for clean edges, I placed the scraps in the white stripes so that I wouldn't accidentally paint them.

 Then all I had to do was paint within the lines.  I used a quart of flat, latex paint and a small foam roller.  At first I attempted to paint with a plastic backdrop underneath, but I found that the paint soaked through the curtain quickly, and then took a long time to dry on the plastic.  I had to be careful not to move the curtain at all, since there was wet paint on the plastic below that could get on the white parts of the curtain if it moved.  To fix this and allow it to dry faster, I put the curtain rod through the curtain (with the plastic packaging still on as to not get any paint on the rod), and then placed the rod up on top of the gross, ugly vertical blinds still left in our Exercise Room. 

Please ignore the junk in the corner. Anything that doesn't have a home yet in this house lives in this room.

 Then I quickly removed the tape to see if the paint bled through, and much to my surprise (because things never go right for me the first time), I had crisp, clean lines.

Unfortunately after it dried, I realized that the paint wasn't solid as I would like, and I had to apply another coat.  I didn't retape for this coat since I didn't need to get it too close to the edges, I mostly had to fill in the middle.

 

This time I placed the curtain on top of a huge sheet of card board so that I didn't have the wet-paint-on-the-plastic issue.  Which worked much better coverage and dry-time wise, although I still hung it up to dry completely.  You can see from this photo how much of the paint soaks through.

 

To hang the curtain rod I wanted to go with a really strong and secure wall anchor.  I found these Pop-Toggle anchors at Home Depot.  

 

They come like this:

 
But you bend them like this to fit them in the hole in your drywall:

Then you just tap them in, and insert your screw.  (Cue inappropriate, immature giggle.)

And the result?

 

 

I'm totally in love with the way they add fun to the room, without being too silly or cute.  And the only cost to me was my $10 quart of blue paint.  I've got some big plans to build a dark wood play table to place under the window to fill the space a little more and provide a space for our little man to play with trains, Playdoh or color.  I've got a few more projects to finish up before then though, so don't expect that post yet this week.  What do you think?  Coming together?  It's certainly a few steps ahead of where we started last week. 

 

Ahhh....I love a good before and after.