My $35 Go-To Curtains & How I Make Them Look Custom
When I worked on my living room nearly two years ago, I hemmed and hawed over my curtains for SO long. You’d swear I was picking out my first child’s name or where I was going to college. But certain design decisions make or break a room, people!
After all the fabric swatches, the Photoshopping, the research on custom curtains, the “should I do a floral/stripe/blockprint/linen” thoughts, I settled on…🥁 drumroll 🥁…WHITE COTTON PANELS FROM IKEA. Groundbreaking stuff, I know.
But something I naively overlooked during the mood board phase of design was how much g.d. money designing and styling out a room actually costs. Good grief. You go into it thinking “oh, it’ll just be a little something here and there.” No. Like when you pack to move, it’s all the little things that eat away at your patience/budget. So going the IKEA curtain route satisfied my need to just make a friggin’ decision that was “good enough” but also didn’t bankrupt me. This is a rental, after all, and going the route of $$$ window coverings was just plain irresponsible and foolish. While I 100% believe in investing in your home even if temporary, some things just don’t add up.
And turns out “good enough” ended up being perfect here and I couldn’t be happier.
When I first put them up and “trained” them (keep reading), my friend Anthony—who always says I work in “home fashions” and really, I’ve never heard anything more appropriate—said all a-glee “It looks like a Pottery Barn in here!” I took that as a compliment. What he meant was it felt cozy and welcoming, and what more could I really want out of my home? Success.
In total, I spent about $175 on the 10 TIBAST panels I needed for the room—six for the front windows, two each for the side windows. I couldn’t even buy a single drapery for that much at some stores. I WIN MUAHAHA. When I revealed the space on Style by Emily Henderson, some readers thought they were custom (obviously, they weren’t).
They have a very subtle pattern on them that just reads as texture from afar. Take a look:
The color is a perfect milky white (not too yellow, not too blue) that works perfectly against my Benjamin Moore Dove White walls.
While you can hang them using the tabs or the pole pocket, I chose secret option number 3: clip rings. But there’s a key to making cheapy curtains look crisp on rings. You gotta train these babies!
As my curtains were already whipped into submission by me, I’m doing a non-dramatic reenactment for the sake of showing you what to do. It’s very easy and I highly recommend it to get that “designer” look. (Why did that feel so annoying to write?). I’ve done this with linen, cotton or poly-blend curtains. Not sure how well it would work on velvet, but worth a try.
Step 1: Get those curtain panels up and hemmed (IKEA curtains come with hemming tape which works great. I always buy extra to have on hand).
Step 2: This step takes a little finessing but then you’re basically done. Gather your panels in equal “folds” however you like. Each of my curtains have six folds in them, and I kept that consistent across the room. While yes, I could have created pinch pleats with the tape IKEA sells, I would have needed way more panels than I have to cover the full length of the front windows.
Step 3: Smoosh the folds or pleats you just created at the top and bottom really tight and secure with either clamps (I grabbed some of Charles’ photography clamps), clothes pins or anything you have on hand you think can work. I think at one point, I used hair ties. WHATEVER! Leave them like this for at least 24 hours. Feel free to yell “DON’T TOUCH MY CURTAINS I’M TRAINING THEM” to anyone who comes close to them, just like I did! (poor Charles, always poor Charles)
Step 4: After the first 24 hours, they should be fine, but if you’re an overachiever, feel free to apply steam on the top and bottom or just iron the bottom part in place after removing the clips. If you’re straight-up insane, take them off the clips and press both the top and bottom with a hot iron, and rehang.
Step 5: Soak in the joy (and possible compliments from onlookers) of beautiful curtains. If you use your panels just for looks, as in you don’t draw them closed—like my side windows that have blinds—just spread them out a little to fill up the space you want on each side of the window. If you draw them closed as I do on my front window because I don’t need anyone looking in at night, then looking back again hours later and screaming “WOW SHE’S STILL JUST SITTING THERE WATCHING NETFLIX?”, you don’t have to do anything special. The beauty is once you open your panels back up, they’ll nest back beautifully because you trained them. Curtains…they’re just like pets!
-> SHOP: Ikea Tibast Curtains, $35 for 2 panels <-
And there you go friends. My super affordable curtain pick and trick. Raise your hand if you’re doing this this weekend? 🙋♀️
*featured image by Sara Ligorria-Tramp