Turn Any Curtains into Tab Panels

While our Loft is still in progress, I love the direction it is heading, and whenever I need to step away and relax from Crazy Project Land I run up here with a Kindle and a glass of red wine.  Ahhh.

That is, except for one minor problem.  One of those that gets under your skin and makes you twitch every time you see it, kind of problems.  (What?  No one else does that?  Me neither... I'm just kidding.)

 I love our curtains, but I can stand how they hang.

These curtains from Ikea came with a poll pocket in the back only, no tabs.  The result is a mess of bunched up fabric.  They can barely even open, here's as far as they can go open without immediately popping back:

So finally this weekend I got to the business of fixing them.  I took 1 panel down at a time, and borrowed another Ikea panel (with tabs) from the Master Bedroom to copy the width and spacing of those tabs.

Then all you have to do is cut a slit in the back of the poll pocket exactly where the tabs are.  Just be careful not to cut all the way through the curtain.  Only cut the back of the poll pocket which will never be seen.

It was sort of hard to see with these curtains since they are sheer, so here's a visual of what it looked like when I did this same technique for the curtains I sewed for our little robot's room. 

 This quick and easy trick was over before I could say "Kate Gosslin's career."

 Don't they hang so much cleaner?  I can actually open the curtains to see outside now.

That couch looks ready for some gratuitous vampire novel reading.  If I can relax there long enough and not think about how I should remove the old blinds....  (oneprojectatatime, oneprojectatatime....)