drop cloth projects | Beneath My Heart

Ladies, I am very pleased that I have finally made some progress on my back patio!

Are you tired of hearing about it yet?

I am so laughing that it has taken me all summer to work on my back patio. Back in the “before working full time” days, I would have knocked this patio out in a couple of weeks!

But noooooo…it’s only taken me about 10 weeks to finally get ‘er done!

I have affectionately labeled this projects as, “The patio that has kicked my tail!”

I was close to raising the white flag, but I didn’t give in.

Thankfully, I am finally lovin’ the almost-finished project.

I am hoping to share the final “reveal” on Friday.

Today I am going to show you the curtains I made for my patio from drop cloths.

No, big surprise there! If you have read my blog for any time at all, you know my love affair with drop cloths. I even wrote a post about me being a “drop cloth connoisseur”.

Why do I like drop cloths? They are cheap, durable, already hemmed, and pretty!

I have drop cloth curtains in my kitchen….

drop cloth curtains

Drop cloth curtains in my den…

A chair with a drop cloth slipcover…

And now drop cloth curtains on my back patio!…

Somebody stop me! :)

To hang my curtains, I purchased 1/2 inch metal poles from Lowe’s. A five foot pole cost only about $1.37 or so. I had to buy two 10 foot poles that were less than two dollars a piece. I cut the 10 foot pieces into two 7 foot pieces for both sides of the patio.

I think it was less than 10 dollars for all 6 of these poles…

I spray painted the poles with KILZ spray primer (which is already white) and then put a final coat of white spray paint on top.

I also bought some little hooks to hold up the poles. They were .67 cents a piece. I bought 8.

My hubby helped me screw the hooks in the wood and put the poles up. I spray painted the hooks white so they wouldn’t show up as much. (Please pay no attention to the dirty spider webs.) :)

I washed and ironed the curtains before hanging them with black ring clips from Lowe’s…

I have a total of 5 of these curtains on my patio! The drop cloths were less than 10 dollars a piece at Home Depot. (Remember, Home Depot drop cloths do NOT have seams down the middle, Lowe’s drop cloths do.)

Here’s a run down of the price of my patio curtains:

5 drop cloths -$50.00

5 sets of ring clips – $25.00

metal poles – $10.00

hooks – $6.00

primer and paint $6.00

Grand Total: $97.00

That sounds like a LOT of money to me, and if I wasn’t working full time, I may not have been able to afford these.

But compared to the Ballard Designs curtains that I love…

(that would have cost over $500.00 for 5 panels), I am thinking I did pretty good!

Now I can pull the curtains out for some extra shade on the patio…

Or I can tie them back…

I will show you the rest of the curtains on Friday.

Tuesday, I will show you a furniture re-do I finished this weekend for the patio.

If you want to see all of my posts about drop cloths, just click on “drop cloths” in the labels in my side bar.

Have a blessed day!

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This is a post from last fall that I am linking to Pink and Polka Dot’s

Thanks for hosting!!!

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If you have followed my blog any this summer, you know that I have become a drop cloth connoisseur and have found many uses for this splendid and inexpensive material.

I showed you the drop cloth curtains I made for my kitchen.

You can read more about them here.

And then I promised you I would show you how I made my drop cloth slipcover for my wingback chair.

I finished it the first week of August, but that is the same week that we found out Mom had cancer, and life was put on hold. And though life changed drastically for my family in the weeks to come, those weeks quickly became the most treasured moments of my life.

Mom is the one who taught me how to sew, though I will never be the seamstress she was. She could sew anything…she could sew professionally.

I am not a professional.

WARNING:

If you are a professional seamstress, I would like to suggest that you stop reading this post immediately.

If you chose to ignore my warning, the following may occur:

Headaches, nausea, loss of breath, light-headedness, weakness in the knees, swelling of the ankles, dry mouth, watery eyes, vomiting and diarrhea.

If any of the above symptoms last for more than an hour, please consult your physician.
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Now for the rest of us….

This was the wing back chair that my mom gave me to slip cover. She had been storing it in her basement, but since she wasn’t using it, she wanted to give it to me.

Since drop cloths are so inexpensive, and I like their texture, I decided to use them to slipcover the chair.

I will try to explain how I slipcovered the chair, but please keep your expectations low…

First of all, I look at the chair like a puzzle. The seams on the chair outline each piece of the puzzle.

So I take my material and lay it over the piece of the chair I want to make a pattern of, and I use a pencil to draw a line where the seam is.

This is how I did it on the front of the arm.

Then I cut about 1/2 inch around the pencil mark for the seam allowance. It doesn’t have to be perfect because slipcovers aren’t perfect. They are supposed to look a little messy!

Then I repeated the same process on the wings of the chair, the front, the back, and so on….

Then I sewed the pieces together to create the slipcover.

I took the slipcover off and on a hundred times checking to see if it “fit” each time I sewed on another piece.

I did use cording on some parts of the chair, but you wouldn’t even have to do that.

(And I forgot to take pictures of how to make the cording. Sorry.)

For the skirt, I just measured across the bottom of the chair to see how wide the skirt needed to be, and I measured down to see how long I wanted it to be.

Then I just cut a rectangular shape using those measurements, cutting about 1/2 inch more around each side for the hems.

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I cut a little flap to go on the corners under the front skirt pieces.

Yes, I haven’t trimmed the thread yet…

This is what the inside of the chair looked like when I was finished. I just used some leftover white canvas material that I already had for the seat.

I got real fancy-smancy on the back…with velcro!

I put velcro on the back to make it slip on and off easier. (Pay no attention to the mess in the corner or the exposed insulation in our kitchen. Did you hear about my unexpected kitchen renovation? If not, click here.)

I secured the material even better with an hook and eye.

Sorry for the blurred picture.

I didn’t worry about how it looked because this side of the chair is up against the wall!

I also used velcro for the back of the seat cushion, instead of a zipper. It’s sooooo much easier. I’m not a zipper-gal.

So, there you have it! Clear as mud????

I think it turned out great!

I washed it for the first time today, and it didn’t fall apart! Yeah!

It has actually stayed pretty clean considering the fact that four little dirty boys have been sitting in it for a couple of months.

And if the material gets ruined by one of my boys (which is pretty much a guarantee), I won’t be too upset because it cost me less than $20.00 to create. Minus the HOURS of sweet precious time it took me to make it.

Okay. I would be upset!

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I am linking this post to some great blogs, so go check them out!

Metamorphosis Monday at Between Naps on the Porch