i love this piece of material. i bought it for $2 at the salvation army fabric sale a few years ago with serina and have kept it in mind for curtains in my “office” after we redesigned the room.

i never thought to measure. i’m not a measuring type sewer. i know that sounds like blasphemy to all the sewers out there, but when it comes to sewing, i wing it. a lot. and i hate patterns. that flimsy tear-easy paper that comes with patterns? those lines all over that flimsy paper? yeah – enough to want me to quit sewing forever. that’s why i love books like Bend the Rules Sewing by Amy Karol. i used that book to make a quilt once. she helps any novice sewer realize they can do it!

so, back to my favorite material. my “office” isn’t really an office – it’s a hallway that connects the kitchen to the laundry room (on one side) and to the back porch (on the other side). so, there are three total doors (not much privacy!) in the small 8×7 foot room. the room was the home’s original “kitchen porch” and it was enclosed and divided to form our 1st floor bathroom/laundry room and the “office.”  when we bought the house, these two rooms were dark – faux wood paneling on the walls with dirty beige carpet. last year, we re-did the laundry room. this summer, we brightened the office up by covering the faux paneling with white bead board from floor to ceiling, pulled up the carpet to reveal the original porch floor, and painted the built-ins white. the only problem is – the room is too bright to photograph!  here are some before photos:

and now to the exact same photos, with the redesign (which look dark because my camera was blown away by how bright the room has become!)

a few extras – we painted the dark brown door bright blue, and you can see the freshly painted porch floor here (we STILL don’t have outlet and switch-plate covers in this room…nor is the trim finished, but we all know we can live without trim!):

instead of a small computer desk, we custom-built a high desk with natural-wood kitchen cabinets (cheap at lowes!) that we painted white, and covered with a natural wood table top that we stained. i LOVE how the stain turned out, and how it looks in the white room.

which brings me to the curtain. it’s way too short. like 8 inches too short:

i suppose i could find some contrasting fabric to make an wide bottom edge, but i didn’t want it to look any busier than the material already is. so…it’s back to the salvation army fabric fair, if i can make it, for some more vintage fabrics for a steal.