My rough, frustrating day

Today didn't start out rough and frustrating. Today started out totally normal. One kid off to school. Another happily learning Spanish and Mandarin from the television. The dog was happy. A cool breeze blowing in my kitchen window. I always open the kitchen and dining room windows at breakfast and close them around lunch when the A/C starts to kick on.

So I was closing the kitchen window just before lunch time. The mini-blinds that have been in place for about 10 days came crashing down on me. That's right, I can't even install mini-blinds correctly. (Backstory - I was not able to drive the screws all the way into the wall, the reason is still unknown. We have an over-sink light in the kitchen, so no room for a support bracket. It gets to be 100 degrees in my kitchen in the afternoons. I was desperate.) I tried to prop them up with a tension rod (I can be uber-resourceful). This resulted in the blinds pulling the brackets completely out of the wall. Which resulted in me walking calmly to the bedroom and having myself a good, soul-cleansing scream.

Then I started looking for solutions. How many times have you seen an HGTV ep of something or other where the designer whips up a great looking, functional shade that quadruples the value of the home? Yeah, me too. I'm fixated on a roman shade. With the window right over the sink, I want to be able to pull the fabric completely away from where I wash the spaghetti sauce pot. I know I've seen designers pull these out of their sewing machines in less than a day. The problem is, I can't find instructions for those projects online! Not technically true. I can find the instructions. But they all require me to buy a lot of hardware, or own a staple gun. I don't want to buy a lot of stuff that I won't use.

In the meantime, I washed the ugly, Battenburg curtains from downstairs, and hung them on the afore-mentioned tension rod. They don't come all the way to the window sill, but they do keep the direct sunlight off me when I'm standing at the sink or the stove. But they're ugly, and I'm tired of settling for ugly just because it's easier.

I still have extra panels from the living room curtains, and I FINALLY found this website with very detailed instructions for making roman shades. And a hardware calculator with VERY detailed results. I will mostly follow these instructions, I think. But instead of using a piece of wood screwed into the ceiling as a headrail, I'll make a rod pocket and use my trusty tension rod. The site is worth checking out - she makes roman shades that are works of art. She uses high-quality quilting fabric - many of them look like stained-glass window panels.

Vent all done, I hope to have finish pictures of this project before next summer. :)