Remade vintage curtain valances

I mentioned yesterday that I'm in the process of decorating my office. I can't really call it REdecorating, since it wasn't decorated to begin with! In fact, it was the only room in the entire house that still sported the original builder's paint. This is significant because the previous owner was very much into decorative painting, and when we moved in, there were all manner of murals and faux finishes adorning every single wall of this house. I have to wonder if perhaps the husband told the wife that she could have free reign over the rest of the house, as long as she left his office alone!

I got the harebrained brilliant idea to paint the room the day before the carpet was to be delivered--we had to pull out all the furniture anyway, and we didn't have to worry about getting paint on the carpet so it seemed like an ideal opportunity! My long-suffering husband went along with me and although painting in the semi-darkness at 10 pm on a Sunday night is not his idea of a good time, I think he'd agree that it looks much better now. We used the only nearly-full can of paint I had, which just happened to be the ever-popular Sherwin-Williams Rice Grain.

Now that we have new paint and new carpet, I've been inspired to actually decorate the room and make it look pleasant, instead of the stuffed-to-the-gills catchall room it had been previously. The large window in the room provides lots of light but it was bare, so I wanted to add a curtain valance just to soften the edges and add some color. I purchased the curtain rod on clearance and with a coupon from Bed, Bath & Beyond, and I knew exactly what curtains I wanted to use:

I bought this set of four vintage curtain panels back in 2007 at a thrift store. I absolutely adore the red, yellow and gray print of windmills, tulips and little Dutch girls! I've never used them because they were too long to be used as valances but too short for any of the windows in my house, so I've kept them tucked away in a dresser for nearly four years.

For my office window, I started out thinking I could just shorten each panel and call it good, but the more I looked at them I realized that I was going to have to completely start over. Whoever sewed them originally did a really poor job, and that's coming from someone who can barely sew a straight line! The seams were all in different places, the lining was sewn differently in each panel, the selvage edges were (unnecessarily) hemmed--it was bad. Armed with my trusty seam ripper, I laboriously removed all of the original stitching until I was basically left with raw fabric once again.

Stitching up the valances was unfortunately not as easy as I had expected, and I have a bit more compassion for the original seamstress now that I've fought with the fabric myself! The side edges of the fabric are selvage but when you fold them to meet, the fabric is not even and the pattern doesn't line up. That created significant difficulties in measuring and sewing to keep the pattern straight and trying to make all four panels uniform.

Even though they're not perfect, I like them--I'm happy that they finally get to see the light of day after four years! They liven up the office and add softness and color around the window, so I'm going to call this project a success--just don't measure the hems. :)