DIY No Sew Window Valance

Here's the first of the tutorials from my friend's son's new bedroom! Let me apologize to you first for the lack of pictures. It's a pretty simple project, I wish I had more pictures to show but I'll try to make up for it.

Just a reminder of what the room looked like before:

It's amazing how some simple window treatments can really pull a room together. I decided to try to make a faux box valance. This was something that I had never done before but always thought it would be pretty simple to do. My first thought was that I would cut some plywood down to size, well, I would have the nice employee at Lowes do it for me. Then I would cover it with some batting and use my new handy dandy staple gun to cover it with our fabric. Great idea, right? Seems simple enough. However my biggest concern wasn't making it, but hanging it. I'm a very crafty person however I'm lacking in basic handyman (woman) skills and I was worried about the weight of hanging fiberboard or plywood, or a 2x4. I honestly just don't know enough about support and weight and whatever else I need to know. I could always ask the hubby but I really wanted to do this project without his help. Off to Lowes I went for some inspiration.

I asked for some help from one of the nice gentlemen that work there and, after explaining what I was looking for, he took me on a guided tour of the store and showed me all of my options. Inspiration hit when we hit the wall insulation department! This huge foam sheet was way more than I needed, incredibly light, and at $16 a sheet, was perfect!

This is a picture of the leftover piece after I cute it to size.

I had one very long window (96.5") so I had to use two pieces and fit them up to each other. Really, all it entailed was wrapping the foam with fabric and stapling around the sides so the fabric was taut.

At the corners I tucked the fabric over to make my corners as neat as possible and stapled the fabric out of the way. It does help to trim any excess fabric away. I will say, it looked beautiful! I was so proud of  my little piece of fabric covered foam!

Looks perfect, doesn't it? Just go ahead and ignore my messy dining room. I really didn't want to carry all this stuff down to my basement craft room. 

Now, here's where I'm lacking in pictures. Again, sorry about that. I didn't connect the two pieces until we were actually in the room. I was worried about transporting it to my friend's house with the length that it was. When I got to her house, I used 2 flat splice brackets to connect the two panels at the long end.

Flat Splice Bracket

And then I used (2) 4" L shaped brackets on each to connect it to the wall above the window. First I connected one 2 to the wall, one on each end, then after triple checking my measurements, I connected them to the backside of the foam. Since it was foam that I was working with, I took my Gorilla Tape and secured everything on the back, the brackets, staples, everything, just in case. 

After all the brackets were attached we simply lifted the valance,which was as light as a feather (and stiff as a board), and connected the brackets to each other so the final bracket shape was an upside down U. The side panels are hanging from curtain rods behind the valance. Very simple and easy project. I think the Valance part of this project cost less than $40.

As always, feel free to leave any comments or questions! Stay tuned for the tutorial on the DIY headboard coming soon! Thanks for reading!

Boy's Bedroom Redo DIY

As you may know, I left my job in Interior Design 7 years ago when I had my first child. I do miss it, however I try to put my hard earned degree to use every so often, usually in my own home. Building our house was one of the most fun things I've done, with every room to design, and me being the client! Sometime I'll post a little on that, this post is on a different 'client.'

My very close friend came to me asking for some help on her son's bedroom. He's almost 7 and, while he had some nice furniture, he was in the same bedding since he was 2 and not much design to the room. As you see, the before pictures:

She wanted a more put together room for him that, without being too mature, he could grow into and not have it be too juvenile for his teenage years.  There was no set budget, the goal was to spend only what we needed too. With every project being a DIY-er, we did a fantastic job with the budget, spending less than $200 on the whole room. 

I'll have quite a few tutorials to follow on all the projects but I'll give you a quick peek on the overall 

What a lot of people don't know is that even arranging the furniture differently in a room can be a huge change. In a bedroom, the bed should be centered on the longest wall. It forms a nice focal point in the room that way. There's lots of different options to create a headboard too if you don't have one. Even simple painting a color block behind the bed is a great option. Hanging a piece of artwork above the bed has the same effect. For my friend's son's room, we were lucky because the only piece he was really missing was a headboard. Here I created a headboard by refinishing and upholstering some awful framed artwork I found at goodwill for $12 each. My friend found fabric she liked on clearance and scored the whole bunch of it for $20. We still have a ton left over that I'm not sure what we're going to do with.

Another really easy tutorial I will have for you is the no-sew window valance I created with roofing foam, a staple gun, fabric, and some brackets. It's so easy you won't believe it and looks very professional.
Here's the link for the No-Sew Window Valance: No-Sew Window Valance Tutorial

We completed the room with some dollar store pizza tins turned sports magnet boards, and some tack board maps that we framed ourselves with trim from the hardware store.

Needless to say, this almost 7 year old is thrilled with his big boy room. Even more satisfying to me, his dad, who while thinking the whole project was unnecessary but let us do it anyway, loves it. 

Stay tuned for some easy to follow tutorials on inexpensive ways to create headboards, window treatments, wall art, and magnet boards. As always, any comments are greatly appreciated!