DIY Burlap Roman Shades from Blinds
My mom keeps saying I need to write a Bless’er House blunders post. Mainly because I have so many hilariously awful project fails that y’all have never seen.
And yesterday, I created a borderline project fail. You’ll see all about it in a sec.
Anyways, you guys! We have more office makeover progress!!! And it’s 95% finished!
In the beginning of our vintage military industrial office adventure, Robert’s very empty man room looked like this:
Womp womp.
Those windows were seriously needing some lovin’… along with every other wall in here.
Over the weekend, we framed out the window with our go-to favorite DIY Craftsman trim, as usual.
And then our plain blinds suddenly felt sort of…blah.
I’d read so many tutorials out there for how to DIY Roman shades out of mini blinds, so I figured it was worth a shot.
Supplies used for DIY Roman shades: (Affiliate links are provided below. For more information, see my full disclosure here.)
- Set of blinds (I used these Levolor faux wood cordless ones we already had hanging up.)
- Fabric of your choice (I used this green poly burlap fabric.)
- Fabric scissors
- Tape measure
- Iron
- Marker or pencil
- Clothespins
- Hot glue gun and hot glue sticks
- Duct tape (if you have cordless blinds)
- A big work table
(Ignore that Mod Podge in the supply shot below since I quickly discovered Mod Podge was a big no-no on the type of fabric I was using. Hot glue is your friend and is super strong.)
Lay your blind front side down on your work table and pull the blind out as far as it will go. Since I was working with cordless blinds, they were super stubborn and wanted to keep retracting on me, so I duct taped the ends down to the table. We had a big fight. I won.
Then the sort of scary part: start cutting strings. But not just any strings.
Don’t cut the smooth cord that runs straight up and down on the blinds.
Do cut the rope-like cord, as well as the ladder strings (the strings wrapped around each slat), and the loop strings (looped around the smooth cord).
Moment of truth…
Once the correct strings are cut, you can remove all of your slats except 6 or 7, depending on the size of your window.
A good rule is to take the height of your window in inches and divide it by 8 to find the number of slats you should have in your Roman shade. My window was 60 inches tall so I decided to use 7 slats.
Then, lay your fabric flat underneath your blind (front side down if you have a fabric pattern to worry about). Use your tape measure to space your slats evenly apart and make sure they’re parallel with each other.
Here’s where I goofed up on my first shade I attempted. Make sure your blind is pulled all the way down to the height of your window. (Mine retracted up a little and I didn’t realize it until it was too late.)
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Leave a 2 inch allowance on each side of your slats, roll the fabric over, and clamp in place with clothespins. At this point, I ironed over top of the new edge to make a nice crease for a hem.
On the sides at the top of the blind, cut a tab for the fabric.
Then, hot glue the fabric over inside of the blind header and clamp with a clothespin.
Do the same for the slats. One at a time, run a few beads of hot glue on the edge of each slat, press the fabric in place on top of the hot glue, and clamp with a clothespin. I ran a line of hot glue on the inside of the crease between each slat as well.
For the top and bottom of the blind, run a line of hot glue and roll over the excess fabric.
So do you see my little project fail in this after shot?
- One of the shades is too short. Doy.
- The slats that you can see through the fabric are completely not even with each other side-by-side.
- These shades probably could have used a cotton liner.
#NailedIt Haha!
So I’ll be redoing the one on the right as that was my first attempt one and it’s kind of sad. But it’s still looking pretty great, right? And they only cost $25 each since we already had the blinds.
Just for before and after’s sake…
Bam! I always think of that scene in First Wives Club whenever we finish a window makeover. You know where Bette Midler, Goldie Hawn, and Diane Keaton are sneaking into an ex-husband’s apartment and their “designer” friend is going on and on about how valances are the eyebrows to the room to distract him?
Oh wait, I probably shouldn’t reference a chick flick in a manly office. Anyways…
The last item on the checklist is replacing the oh-so-lovely boob light and we’ll be done! And probably adding a couple of functional desk accessories too.
If you want to check out the rest of the projects in our office, you can find all the links below:
- Office Before Shots and Makeover Mood Board
- DIY RH Inspired French Mute Books
- DIY Vintage Pull-Down Map
- Industrial Shelving
- Faux Zinc Safe Makeover
Have you ever attempted DIY Roman shades before? Or think you might? And hopefully will measure a little better than I did? Have you ever had any hilariously awful Pinterest fails? We should totally have a a big project fail party one day.
