My home has a lot of windows. This is amazing, because the 630 sq ft apartment we had before this had two total and there was no light. I love that I have so many windows now.
However, my home came stock standard with white blinds. I am not a fan of blinds. I hate raising them, lowering them, and twisting the little rod to get them to angle the blinds in the right direction. They are not really energy efficient, and hot summer and cold winter weather came right through them. Plus, I never ever feel like they are completely closed. I know they are, but I always feel like you can see into them.
I like blackout/insulated curtains, and I found this great blackout fabric on Amazon. (not an affiliate link) The fabric is insulated, so it helps keep heat in during the winter and out during the summer. It’s white, so from outside you see white curtains with the blue house, and that looks cute.
For the inside layer of curtain fabric, I bought sheets for everything but the bathroom. I got jellyfish fabric for the bathroom to keep with my undersea theme. I needed ten windows worth of fabric, and that’s a lot. Joanne’s seems to be dying a long tragic death, and has little in the way of selection, and Fabric.com got bought out and closed by Amazon. Because of all this, it was just easier and cheaper to buy flat sheets from Walmart for fabric.
It was a really easy job to sew them up. I just made a big pocket and doubled over the top for the rod to slip through.
I added some inexpensive curtain rods to the my windows. Maybe when I do the rooms in their final colorful fun form I’ll replace those rods with fancy ones. I don’t know yet.
I also don’t want my neighbors seeing into my home, so I got double rods for all of my larger windows. This allows me to put sheers into the inner rod, so we can see out, but nobody can see in.
I started this project last year in December, and I have 7 out of 10 curtains done. The last windows in the dining/kitchen area need done still, but are challenging because I need to figure out how to hang them when the windows but up against the cabinets with zero space to spare.
What I didn’t expect was how effective on heat and cold insulation these curtains would be. You can physically feel the different behind the curtain when it’s hot or cold out. The difference is shocking. If I had know these kind of insulating fabric for curtains existed, I would have done this years ago. Not to mention the black out effect is better than any store bought black out curtains I have ever had. I can sleep midday and it’s dark in my room now.
This makes this project far more effective than I could have imagined. First, I feel safer in my home with windows that feel fulling closed. You can’t put a price on that. Second, the insulation quality of the curtains with that black out fabric was off the charts. I totally underestimated how much of a difference this would make. I highly recommend this, if you can sew even a tiny bit. This is an easy project to help insulate your home and depending on how old your windows are? This could really help.
Garden Rat 