The Power of Perseverance
Perseverance – persistence in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success (thank you Google).
We’ve all been there. Starting out on our own. In our first apartment. Or buying our first house. Trying to step up our game, because now we’re playing on our own. To show everyone we can do this. And do it well. Like it’s second nature.
We DIY’d how many different things? Some we laugh about to this day. Others we still pat ourselves on the back for our ingenuity and brilliance (even if we’re still the only ones who thought it was brilliant).
The Brilliant Plan
When we moved into our house, we did not have any window treatments. We had hung blinds in all of the windows, but didn’t have curtains or valances for any of them.
While I had wanted some cool valances or gorgeous curtains, it just wasn’t in our budget. There were lots of windows and I knew we could live with just the blinds for a while, but I really wanted something for our family room. I searched and looked and dug around online, in magazines, even evaluated other people’s valances when I visited their home.
Inevitably the ones I’d fall in love with were custom done, which was something I just wasn’t willing to invest in yet. I knew I could sew up some simple valances. It was just a matter of finding the right fabric design – something simple, and understated, but classy. I didn’t want them to be the focal point of the room, but I definitely wanted them to be pretty.
The room I was targeting first was our family room. We had one chocolate wall and 2 taupe-colored walls with white trim around. Our furniture was also chocolate with country pine tables and armoire. The accent color in our couch pillows was a slate blue…something I was afraid to try and match!
I decided that with the placement of the furniture, the fact that blinds were already in the windows, and just personal preference, I wanted to do valances. So 3 valances was my project. And while I was dreaming, I thought I’d also like to have a brownish colored valance, with a little bit of the slate blue. I had no idea how I was going to pull that off!
The Pursuit
I went fabric shopping and perused the drapery aisles. I just couldn’t bring myself to pay the per-yard prices for fabric I really wasn’t excited about. I found a few fabrics that were okay, but at just ‘okay’, I wasn’t ‘okay’ with that level of investment. Weeks and weeks went by.
On one of my many jaunts to the fabric stores, and even looking at clearance curtains (thinking I could cut them down), I stumbled across a chocolate colored burlap. Yes, burlap! Since it did not have a design on it, it needed to be dressed up a bit, so I steered my focus to trims. I had hoped to find something with a touch of the slate blue in it, but already wondered how likely that would be.
Much to my surprise, I found a trim with both chocolate and slate blue in it. It was a tassel trim. And that’s when my creative juices kicked into high gear. If I bought enough burlap, at a price significantly cheaper than the drapery fabrics, I could sew simple valances and tack on the tassel trim. Holy cow, this was so going to work! And well within our budget!
The Obstacle & Perseverance
This all sounded too perfect, right? You are perceptive, oh reader one.
Initially, I bought enough chocolate burlap for one window just in case it didn’t turn out well. I sewed it up and as I was testing it out above the window I noticed the burlap had a see-through-ness that I did not care for. In fact, I hated it. Hanging on the rod it looked like, well, burlap. But we didn’t live in a barn. Good thing I only bought enough for one valance. I wasn’t sure which was worse: the fact that it didn’t turn out, or the fact that I was back to square one. Not the simple and classy look I was going for.
Over the course of the next week I pondered on what I could do to this existing valance. And what about just living without valances? Could I possibly back the burlap in a darker fabric to prevent the light from coming through? And whatever I came up with, would it work? I dug through my fabric stash and found a black fabric. Would it be TOO dark? Could it alter the shape and lay of the valance? Would it prevent enough of the light from coming through? Was it worth the effort? I mean, the valance was going to be scrapped, so, why not?
The Overcomer
Again, I tested the backing on this one valance, and voila! It worked! After attaching the backing, I tacked on the trim and hung it. It was the simple and classy look I was going for! A win! And it didn’t even LOOK like burlap! Double win!
Back to the fabric store I went for more burlap, backing, and trim. I finished up the other 2 valances, hung them, and now the room had a finished feel.
Score one for DIY perseverance!
When was a time you set out to DIY a project that you wanted to do a cheaper version of, with the bonus of actually pulling it off? Don’t get me wrong, I would have loved a custom valance, or even a pricier version of what I created, and now, I would consider those things. But at that time, it just wasn’t in the budget.
But isn’t it fun to look back on things you did to ‘get by’? To re-live a little bit of the glory days that go with it? Even if I would now buy a more expensive version, it’s still fun to know I was able to produce the happiness and satisfaction of putting the last finishing touch on that room. And for the record, I made those several years ago and they’re still hanging in our family room. To perseverance….
