Monday, April 19, 2010

"Those Look Like Our Old Bedding," said Chatty as she walked by....aka Repurposing

Cleaning out my garage and my garage sale boxes has given me some ideas.

Last year, of course, we were happy that the third matching cabinet with the big hole cut out for an old and big-backed television didn't sell. I've referred back frequently to the post about the hole picture.

Now that I'm actually taking things that didn't sell last year to the one of the local charities, I'm making lists of the items for tax purposes. I'm going through the boxes, putting the items on a list, and putting them in a different box.

As I was doing this last week, I found two twin-sized bed skirts that are a chambray denim. They used to be on the girls' beds when we lived in Illinois. They had to have bunk beds due to the small room size in Virginia, and now we no longer have twin beds.

Usually the middle of bed skirts is a very thin white fabric and often tears easily. Ask me how my I know. But these bed skirts have fabric in the middle that is exactly like what hangs down on the sides.

I decided that if I cut off the skirts, I could use the middles and have two panels to use as draperies for Buddy's room. He only has one window.

I had to rip out two seams on three sides of each one. The second seam was the one that included the serging on the edges (I think that's what it's called), so I ended up with rough edges on those three sides.

I originally thought when I took out the seam that I'd have finished edges on all sides and then the one side with an original hem. I wasn't anticipating a second seam that combined the serged edges. It ended up taking me about 2 1/2 to 3 hours to rip out all the seams.

I bought two packages of those drapery clips and kind of folded the unfinished edge over when I clipped them on. It was easy to do since there was a semi-permanent fold. I left the two sides unfinished and the bottom has the single edge that is hemmed.

You can't really tell the sides are unfinished since it's bunched, but it's okay with me if it shows a little anyway. This is my grass-stained knee baseball kid with big Fathead men all over his room.

This post is linked to DIY Day at A Soft Place to Land.

4 comments:

Mari said...

Kayren - what a great idea! It looks great and is perfect for a boys room!

Kristenph said...

Perfect! That is a wonderful idea.

Love Bears All Things said...

Well, that is the 3rd R. Reuse A great idea. Don't you love it when you have one of those.
Mama Bear

Susan said...

Way to go Kayren! Recycle and reuse!!

 
Designed by Blogs by Sneaky Momma