I can hardly believe that the bambina will be 5 months old tomorrow! Until now, she’s been spending pretty much all of her sleepy time in Mamma and Papa’s room (except when Grandma’s here – in that case, she sleeps on Grandma). We’ve all come to the conclusion that it’s pretty much time for her to move to her own room, but before that can happen, we need to get it ready! Living in a quasi-tight apartment, we decided not to set up the nursery until we needed it. After all, it’s taking over the room that previously served as office/guest room/craft space/in-apartment storage unit. And neither Mamma nor Papa really wants to give up that room.
Anywho, besides the obvious furniture arrangements that need to be made, she will also need some heavy light-blocking curtains. That girl needs it dark to sleep! But when we’re in there playing or reading stories, I want to use natural light. Hence, we need a cute way to hold back those curtains.
Now, I love the fancy holdbacks that you can buy from Pottery Barn…
or Restoration Hardware…
But I can’t afford $35 for the thing.
Especially when I have a drawer full of these…
Do you need to install a super-cute, ultra-cheap holdback for a curtain in your home? Gather your supplies. You’ll need one spool (I found an old cute wooden one in my drawer), a long wood screw, and your handy dandy electric drill (or a screwdriver and loads of elbow grease).
Hopefully there’s a nice stud near the window.
No, not that kind. (But I wish! True Blood can’t come back soon enough.) Screw the spool into the wall, ideally into the stud. If you don’t like the look of your spool, you could always paint it or Mod Podge something on it first. I kind of like it plain, though – it’s kind of got that whole over-played shabby chic look going on. (And also, the spool I found is from my husband’s late grandmother’s stash which I shamelessly raided lovingly commandeered a few years ago. So I don’t think I could bring myself to do anything permanent to it. When I found it in my drawer, it still had the price tag on it – 15¢!)
Ok, anyway. Hang your curtain and wrap the tieback around your spool.
I used an eggplant-colored ribbon to hold back the chartreuse curtain.
You’re right, I’m definitely not a curtain stylist.
And no, that curtain doesn’t block the light at all. I’ll have to track down some blackout fabric to line it before bambina can move in. And hem it up some. Don’t need her pulling it down on herself!
Bambina, Homemade 