My Secret To Making Cheap Curtains Look More Expensive

CURTAIN ROD | CURTAIN RINGS | CURTAIN | LIGHT | SIMILAR DESK

Every single time I start researching curtains it amazes me how DANG expensive they are! You can easily spend hundreds of dollars on curtains for a room. They are such a vital part of a space, that one day I will probably pay for custom curtains, but for now, I've had to get creative about getting the look for less.

I'm a stickler for curtain rules. The first rule for getting expensive looking curtains is hanging the rod 3" below the top of the ceiling. Then, you HAVE to get curtains that touch your floor. The perfectly kissing the floor is the custom look we want. 

The chances that you can buy a standard curtain from a store and have it sweep your floor is slim to none. All the curtains in my apartment come from Target, Walmart, and Amazon. But you can bet your bottom dollar I figured out a way to make it so you would never know I got them from there! 

My guest room has needed a little love for awhile now so I thought this post came at a perfect time to show you how I made these Amazon curtains work perfectly in this room!

You can see the difference here on how much this makes it look cleaner and more put-together. It takes about 15 minutes of your time and you probably have all the supplies besides one thing at home! And you can get the one thing overnighted from Amazon (like we did haha).

THE PROCESS:

First, hang your curtains and fold the excess up. Like I've said a million times, you want the curtains to "kiss" the floor. If you have a partner for the next step, it will probably make your life easier! 

Measure the length of the excess curtain that you want to cut off. To be extra precise, have one person hold the curtain taut and the other person measure. You can't really see in this photo, but behind the curtain I am holding the excess up. I am measuring to see how much I need to take off of the existing curtain. 

Take your curtains off the rod and lay them down on a flat surface. Fold over the length of the curtain that you want to cut off (using the measurement from before). I found that using clips to secure that folded edge helps you keep a consistent length. 

Leaving about two inches folded over, cut off the excess curtain. Double check that you're working with the bottom and not the top of the curtain before cutting anything! This cut does not have to be perfect because it will not be visible. 

Bear with me on the subpar photos you are about to see...we had just gotten home from moving into the GBOGH house and we were dead haha.

Buy yourself some hemming tape. We got this exact one. You're going to heat up an iron really hot. Make sure it is fully hot. We thought the hemming tape wasn't working for awhile, but the iron just wasn't hot enough. 

Lay the hemming tape close to the top where you want to lay the folded part of the curtain over. 

My curtains had a few layers to it so it was easiest for me to open the layers up to really get the heat of the iron onto the hemming tape.

DON'T iron directly onto the hemming tape. You want to sandwich the hemming tape in between the curtain. You'll ruin your iron if you place it directly on the hemming tape ;). 

We thought the above two pictures were MIA so Hannah created the above illustration. To show her appreciation for the effort, we're leaving it in the post ;). 

And there you have it! I'd recommend starting with one curtain, hang it and make sure it looks right, make any needed adjustments, and then do the others with those same changes (if any). 

This is honestly really forgiving so even if it isn't perfect you won't notice!

THE SUPPLIES:

This post was all about hemming curtains.

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