An Inexpensive Window Treatment

The day we moved into our home I found a piece of bamboo in the attic. I love bamboo! Absolutely love it! 🙂 It is an easily renewable resource (eco friendly), sturdy, versatile…need I go on?

Anyway, I needed to update the window in my dining room but I couldn’t afford to go buy new curtains and rods, etc….meaning this had to be cheap. 😉

As you can see, my window has plain sheers on old fashioned metal rods. No pizazz. 😦

I had my sweet husband cut the bamboo to the right size for the window and then I began to hunt for some brackets. I went to see my dad who used to run his own heating and cooling business and saves everything. Sure enough he had some conduit straps that he bent to the right shape using a vise grip…they were just right! I spray painted them with several coats of white (sorry, my pic was only after about 2 coats).

We (OK…I mean my husband) secured the brackets to the wall using plain old regular screws.

Next I took my plain orange sheers and sewed ribbon to the top (.47 cents a spool – I used two).

After tying the curtains on the rod, I thought it still needed something. I added a couple of bamboo (Did I mention I love bamboo?) and fabric fans that I recovered with scrap fabric from another dining room project I did a few years ago.

I also have a Japanese-style globe lantern that I bought at a thrift store last year. I found three of them for a $1 each, but they didn’t have the light kits with them. I took my white lights from Christmas and placed them inside. My husband made a rod to hold the lantern out of a piece of scrap wood and a little bracing hinge. Here is my before and after…what do you think?

Before