Curtains are tough. I love the idea of a fun patterned curtain, but can just never seem to commit to a particular pattern or color scheme. That being said most of the curtains in my house are solid and neutral. I have navy curtains in guest room 1, gettin' wild!
I've been trying to figure out exactly what to do in MLW's "man room" and just knew that neutral would make the room kinda bland. So far, we have grey owl walls, a grey sofa and white tile floor. It was getting a little 50 shades of grey. Then I found a kantha throw at a local shop Celadon with wonderful navys, oranges, greens and reds, and a very pretty medium tone green rug from One Kings Lane and things were looking up!
But back to the curtains. What would look good?!? This room also has 4 big windows so I needed something with a little bit of a punch, but not enough to overpower the space. I came across this pretty Caitlin Wilson fabric and knew I was on to something. I loved the metallic gold geometric pattern, the gold would look good with the kantha throw, but still add a little punch to the windows. But at $65 a yard I knew it was wayyyy out of my budget.
So then I found this post on Pinterest and things really started clicking. The original post from Cakies was about using gold dots on fabric and turning it into a tee shirt. But I thought, why couldn't this go bigger? And with an weekend trip to Ikea in the near future I knew I could make something similar happen.
So here is how it went down:
I picked up 4 packages of the Merete curtains in white from Ikea. They are a nice cotton blend so I figured they would take the gold well. Also they were $ 27.99 and 2 panels to a package. A pretty good deal if you have been curtain shopping lately.
Love this stuff. I used it to paint the handles on a basket and had some left over. I love the brass color, a little more toned down than the gold, but I'm sure that would be lovely too. I ended up needing two more jars but at $7ish bucks a pop, still not too bad.
I also picked up this dabber at Michaels for paint application. I actually didn't want each dot to be perfect and loved that I got a couple of good solid dots before it would fade a little bit. The original post mixed their paint with modge podge. I tried this at first but it turned a dark brown color that freaked me out. Needless to say I forgot that modge podge dries clear and only the gold would show through in the end. It worked out just fine though with using the liquid guilding. The fabric of the curtains soaked it right up. Tip: I wrapped my plate in plastic wrap to protect it. The liquid brass does not come off easily! I would recommend using a triple stacked paper plate if you have them laying around. (also yes, that is corgi hair on my dabber. no judgement.)
I would also recommend using a plastic barrier, but I got excited and this curtain from our past house that didn't make the cut did the trick. It is a thicker weave and did add a bit of a pattern to the dot, but i the end the extra texture was quite nice.
Next I laid down the clean white Merete curtains and started dotting. It took about 15 minuets per panel, so times that by 8 panels and there you go.
Hang those bad boys up to dry over night and....
Hang them up in the morning. The curtain rods are also Ikea finds. Love that store. MLW supervised from the couch.
Ta-da! I love, love when an idea in my head actually turns out well!
Close up of the various saturation of the dots.
Man room is looking pretty cozy right about now. And I know I've kept ya'll in the dark about its transformation, but it just looked so drab until these curtains went up!
I had a pretty good haul at ikea and I'll be customizing some other purchases pretty soon too. In the mean time I hope ya'll like these curtains as much as I do!
Love ya'll!
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