French Door Curtains On A Budget

One major thing going on inside this crazy-never quiet-always creating head of mine lately, is curtains! Weird right? 

We have lived here for almost 2 years and I thought my windows were just dandy with the vertical blinds in them. 

Until I decided to put up these curtains from my our old master bedroom, in our new living room. 

  OK not the greatest picture I know but I cant for the life of me find one of the whole room. I'll have to get better at taking pictures because our rooms never stop evolving. 

I have some gorgeous fabric ordered to make curtains for the dining room! It will be my first full set and I am so excited about those.

Now that curtains are on my mind I have been thinking about putting something inside the french doors that lead to my Baby Boutique. I didn't want to pay an arm and a leg, have you seen the prices of curtains these days? Outrageous!   

On my trip to Walmart today I came across these $6 tab top panels and that creative light bulb flashed in my head once again (I think mine rarely turns off). These thin rods were $4 for a pack of two, cant go wrong with prices like that! 

The only problem...tab tops! Ugh yuk! Brings me right back to my lime green room in my parents basement at 16 years old - where I had purple and pink tab top curtains hung! Wow..after typing that sentence I am sure glad my design style has changed! 

The curtains were too long as well so I cut off about 6", folded them down and created a new hem. I also ripped open a small section of the bottom hem with my seam ripper, you will see why. 

I used the hardware that was left from the previous owner and hung my new curtains.

I used the two extra rods to slide in the small opening I made in the bottom hem. 

This keeps the curtains weighted at the bottom and also allows them to flare back out rather then hang straight when gathered in the middle. 

Remember that six inch section I cut off each panel? Well they were reused and turned into tie backs! With a sweet little button and they were complete. 

Here they are inside the doors. Just the right amount of privacy. Good enough to hide the mess in the entrance too!

Here are some before and afters:

Here is my budget breakdown:

Two black curtain panels: $12

Four curtain rods: $8

Total Cost: $20!!!!

Now that's my kind of makeover!