Minor Kitchen Update and Cafe Curtain Details

It’s time for a few minor changes around here including paint, new curtains and maybe…just maybe…a new kitchen table.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

Today I’m sharing details for the toile cafe curtains and floral valance, that have served me so well, in case you’d like to duplicate this look with your own fabrics. The handkerchief style valance is made from a really pretty brown floral called Kings Muir.  To add an extra detail and give the valance a bit of interest in the droops I lined the upper back portion with a black and tan check which is also repeated at the hem. (see below)

As you can see in the above photo, there’s 4 windows in my kitchen but I treated the wall of windows with one long valance and the single window with a matching smaller one.

The lower portion of the valance has a 3″ band of the same black check topped with a flat braid trim.

This window faces south which caused some minor fading along the back side of the valance hem.

To achieve this look the valance was made 2 times the width of the rod. The above valance is 222″ (ring to ring) wide shown hanging from a 110″ rod.
The smaller valance is 69″ (ring to ring) wide hanging from a 37″ rod.

Ring to Ring – the measurements above is the width of the valance from the first ring on the left to the last ring on the right. *The handkerchief portion of the valance is created by an additional 20″ at the ends of each valance. Technically the valances measure 262″ and 99″ respectively.

CAFE CURTAINS

The cafe curtains are made from a red and tan toile and lined with partial blackout lining. There is some fading due to sun exposure along the lead edge of each panel and across the upper back facing. You can see a portion of this fading along the right side in the photo above.

I created these cafe curtains to hang along this wall of windows. These three windows are 31″ wide each.

Instead of making 6 panels – 2 for each window – which seemed like a lot of curtain panels I created the panel for the left window to hang to the left and the panel for the right window to hang to the right as shown above. Only the center window has two panels.

Each panel is 41.5″ long. The left and right panels are 78″ wide.
The center window panels measure 38″ wide. This arrangement has worked great!

The side window is 35″ wide. I made these 2 panels 38″ wide each.

 

MINI SNEAK PEEK

Currently my kitchen is a wreck.

A small portion of the kitchen and the left half of the breakfast area are in various stages of being painted. The other half in still the old color.
Said breakfast area is currently without switch plates or outlet covers and has been in this condition for over 3 weeks.
Life took precedence over painting.
But the good new is…
The valance has been removed and lovely white spackling spots now reside where holes once were.
The new curtains are mostly finished. Though I picked the fabric out over a year ago, it was only recently purchased.
We’ve agreed to start the hunt for another kitchen table. Our family’s at 9 and counting! It’s time for a bigger table.
And I plan to start painting again later this week!

So…we’re making progress! We’re getting there! It’s almost done! It’ll happen!
My daily mantra. 😉