Snap Grommet Curtains

Well before we started our kitchen redo…

We were stuck in a rut. Same window covers, same dirty carpet, same kitchen, same everything except for paint as the day we moved into our house. I am the type of person that needs and craves change be it little or big. Usually its as simple as moving some furniture around. This time, I have the craving for a change in curtains. Every time I opened and closed the curtain, the rope you had to pull on would hurt my hand. They were also white, not a good color for a family with young kids and a dog. It was also bright when we wanted it dark. To curb the curtain craving, I researched different ways to make blackout curtains. It came to my attention that making them from a new store-bought piece of fabric would actually be more expensive than buying already made curtains and fixing them up so they hung the way I wanted them to. After a trip to Walmart I had enough curtain rods and curtains to cover a very large window, a sliding door/window, and a medium sized bedroom room window. I also bought a product called snap grommets. 

The grommets come with a little tool for you to draw the middle and the circle on your fabric so you can cut out the right sized hole for the grommet. I know its hard to see, but that's what I did in this picture. Right in the middle is a little "x" with the circle around it. Unfortunately the grommets didn't come with an easy way to get the hole started. For this I used a butcher knife, cut into the center, then used my fabric scissors to cut the hole. Although it worked really well I didn't take any pictures of this. I just couldn't figure out how to maneuver a butcher knife, fabric, and a camera at the same time. =) Make sure that before you jump into this, you measure out where you want the grommets placed.

The hole is cut. 

It is called snap grommet for a reason, all you do is put it both sides on and press together. Very easy and simple.

Trial run. When I took the curtains out of the package they were obviously creased from being shoved in a tiny little package. After I made sure it look alright I tossed them (snap grommets and all) in the dryer with a damp towel. 

And, tada  they were done. Bad lighting, sorry. My college lighting teacher would be super frustrated with this and most of the pictures I post on here. Sorry professor.

Because the store bought windows did not meet the window measurements, they were too long and not wide enough, I bought three, cut one in half, and sewed the whole ones to the halves as well as shortened them. If you look closely in the picture below on the right and left sides of the curtain you can see where I sewed the halves to the wholes so it would open in the middle. 

Super easy and totally changed the look in our house. The perfect amount of change for the moment. (Little did I know that the kitchen project would be very very soon at that moment!)

Kitchen Redo- Kickboard

The final step so far in our kitchen redo was to add a kick board. We had the same dark wood around the base of our cupboards. It had to go. This was a pretty easy part. Because of the way the previous kick board was installed, it was best to simply cover it with new stuff. Measure, cute, stain, nail, and done! =)

We had a super little helper!

To see the before and after pictures click here.

To see the sanding process click here.

To see the painting and staining process click here. 

To see the mess we created click here.

To see the cabinet doors click here.

To see edging choices click here.

To see how we added a cutting board shelf click here.

Kitchen Redo- Adding a Cutting Board Shelf

The was the demo part of our "remodel." After using our kitchen for a few years we know where we cut things, mix things, and make things. It only made sense to put items that we use for cutting, for example, on the side of the kitchen that we cut things. Granted my kitchen is very tiny so walking across it to grab the cutting boards was not that big of a challenge, but it makes things so much more convenient when they are already right where you need them to be. So, to solve the cutting board dilemma, my husband created a cutting board shelf. We had, and still have, a large amount of wasted space which drives me crazy, but we can only do so much at a time. Right next to our drawers, we had a thin space that would be perfect for holding a few cutting boards.

We first had to make sure there was nothing behind where we wanted the shelf. We took off the side panel to find what we expected, wasted space. See all the space behind the drawers? They could be that much deeper or there could be something else done with that space! Ugh, wasted space!!!

After we knew we could make this work we took out the front panel with a screwdriver and hammer.

We created a bottom shelf and back, again out of the material we used for the doors.  There was already a panel on the inside part of the space (next to the drawers) so we didn't need to add anything there.

Here is a close up of how we got the bottom shelf to attach to the sides. We just notched out a space to slide the new bottom in.

Because there was already supporting boards on the front of the unit, we just had to rest the bottom of the shelf on it. We did, however, need to cut a notch out of the side to go around the 2 x 4 toward the front. 

Before we put the final side panel on, this is what it looked like.

Front panel

Stained

The counters are actually really crooked so this did happen, but not to worry because we will cover it with corner molding. 

We still don't have the corner on, but it looks pretty good!

To see the before and after pictures click here.

To see the sanding process click here.

To see the painting and staining process click here. 

To see the mess we created click here.

To see the cabinet doors click here.

To see edging choices click here.