Week 5 of the One Room Challenge was officially cancelled in solidarity with the #blacklivesmatter movement. So much listening and learning has happened this past week to raise awareness and take responsibility and begin to facilitate the real change that MUST happen. We cannot just revert to “business as usual”. We must persevere until there is peace and justice for all of our brothers and sisters. While decorating feels trivial compared to the weightier issues at hand, beauty seems more necessary than ever as a healing balm for our souls.

So here is Week 6 of the ORC - special thanks to founder Linda Weinstein and media sponsor Better Homes and Gardens. We are more than halfway through the challenge doing our Vintage Diva Glamour Den bedroom makeover. If you’ve missed the other weeks you can read about them here: WEEK 1 | WEEK 2 | WEEK 3 | WEEK 4.

This week a LOT of stuff arrived, and thank goodness because time is running out in this 8 week challenge! It is quite a job to try to put together a great room on a budget without being able to go select most things in person! Ordering online is a bit of a shot in the dark and we have mostly been very lucky that the stars have aligned and it all works! My friend, consultant Leslie Carothers of Savour Partnership, brilliantly coined the term “panstacles” which made me laugh and perfectly describes the Pandemic Obstacles situation!

The yardage for our window treatments was one of the first things to get here and it is beauuuutiful! While I had a picture and a small sample for color and texture, seeing the whole bolt of yardage was exciting and confirmed it was absolutely the perfect choice. I am in love with this fabric!

I dropped it off at the workroom to be turned into window panels…it was a little like dropping your kid at summer camp for the first time, only with social distancing and I didn’t cry…in just a couple weeks it’ll get it back :)

About Custom Drapery

When you order custom drapery, even something as simple as panels, there is still a LOT of information that needs to be communicated to the workroom.

Length

They need to know how long each panel should be, obviously. If the floors are uneven and you want them to skim the floor you may need to order them in slightly different lengths. I prefer panels that “break” on the floor about 1/2” - 1” so that offers a touch more grace for any anomalies…there is nothing cheaper looking than floodwater drapes!

Returns

In addition to length, the workroom also needs to know the return, which is how much extra to allow on the outside ends to wrap back to the wall. This will depend on the drapery hardware you have selected and how deep the brackets are.

Header Style

You also must define the header style, which is the top of the drapes. For our panels I have specified a top tack pleat for a slightly fresher take on a French pleat. Pleated draperies have a more finished feel than flat panels and pleats keep the fullness evenly distributed.

Overlap and Width

If they are working panels that will be drawn, you will also need to decide the overlap for where they meet. Additionally, you need to determine the widths of the panels. Decorator fabrics are generally, though not always, 54” wide goods. Ours are going to be decorative stationary panels so we don’t need to worry about coverage, but one rod will be longer and so I have added extra width for that window so the fullness will be the same on both windows.

Lining and Interlining

For these panels, I have specified lining and interlining (a layer of flannel between the decorative fabric and the lining) for body and nice soft folds. Interlining can make even inexpensive fabric look more sumptuous, and I use it on all lined custom window treatments. Interlining can be purchased in a variety of thicknesses depending on the look you want and the bulk you need in order to achieve it. You can read all about the difference between custom draperies and ready made here to help you decide which is right for you.

Blinds and Hardware

The blinds and hardware I ordered online also came! The bamboo blinds will work, I think. I may need to alter the color a bit. They are fine with the fabric, but they are a little greener in tone than I really wanted, I’m going to test some Old English furniture restorer on an inconspicuous spot on the back and see if I like what it does to them!

The hardware is another matter entirely. I REALLY wanted beautiful French return rods like the custom ones shown above, but even at wholesale and with a discount from my fabricator for the challenge, they were out of budget. So, I ordered French return rods and rings from Lowe’s. They were inexpensive and it shows. Ugh. My least favorite thing about ready made rods is that they are almost always extension rods meant to fit a variety of windows. It’s like one size fits all clothing, which we know really means it fits NO ONE well! Extension rods means one section needs to be smaller than the other to telescope inside. Because of the pandemic I ordered online rather than looking at these in person. I had assumed the curved parts that attach to the wall would be separate and identical and the extension part would just be in the straight run which I ordered at the largest size so it would not need to be extended. Alas, I assumed wrong. The rod is just 2 pieces so one curved end that attaches to the wall is smaller than the other end, which just looks ridiculous and wonky and SO not worthy of my gorgeous drapery panels. So it is back to the drawing board with a DIY regular pole.

Other stuff that came…

It’s like Christmas here…and we are on a first name basis with the tracking and delivery people…every day, we get new notifications and deliveries of one thing or another! THANK YOU to all the essential workers making this possible!

We got the botanical sheet set from LL Bean that will become a duvet cover and it is a PERFECT complement to the drapery fabric….different scale and density of pattern, but with colors that are a great match for some of the colors in our main fabric. You can read more about how to mix patterns HERE.

The inexpensive coverlet and sham set came. It came in this bag and I’m pretty sure that just like toothpaste, once I take it out, it is NEVER going to fit back in, but it is cute packaging! The bag is made of the coverlet material. If they had made both ends the same, it could have doubled as a neckroll pillow cover…hmmm.

Another exciting arrival was our chalk paint - again ordered on line and hoping for the best. Never ever select a paint color this way! This was relatively low risk since we had a lot of green colors that could work and we were only buying one small can, but still, this is NOT the way to choose a color! We got extremely lucky and it turned out the color could not be better if I had custom mixed it! Phew!

And the cute tree branch hooks and super strong magnets arrived too! We chose magnets with a 6 pound pull force - small but mighty! You could hang glide from these things (okay, you could hang glide from these things if you weighed less than 6 pounds)…and they are going to work perfectly for our super secret feature wall. We don’t want to give it away, but we’ll talk about the inspiration and process for it next week and show you the ingredients :) The big finish will have to wait for the reveal post, though.

And that’s it for Week {5-1/2} 6! The More About Week 6 post is coming soon since week 6 is just now wrapping up- check back for our painting and furniture moving progress - the Diva cannot be without her vanity for very long! And check out the rest of the One Room Challenge Participants HERE for more inspiration and incredible projects!