Slowly, slowly Garth and I have been re-doing our kitchen. When we moved in, I vowed to first rid the house of wallpaper and get all of the walls painted before getting into too much decoration. This is easier said than done. Painting the walls in a room suddenly makes everything else that should/could be done that much more obvious. It is like buying a new dress and realizing you probably need new shoes to go with it and possibly a belt and purse as well. This is the case with the kitchen. With the wall newly drywalled and painted, I wanted to see more change happen fast. We would like to change most things about our kitchen, but working within our budget means we can really only change things that we can do ourselves.

One of the fastest ways to change the feeling of a space is with fabric, which is why new window treatments seemed like the perfect solution to really change the mood in our kitchen. Read on for a step-by-step Roman shades how-to, with process shots.

The curtains that we inherited with our house were white lace. These curtains shaded the windows halfway up and partially across the top. The nice thing about the lace curtains is that they really let light into the room (and I do love a sunny kitchen, especially in cloudy Humboldt County). The downsides? Garth and I love the molding detail around our windows, which the curtains covered. Aside from that, lace isn't exactly our thing.

I was looking for a window covering with bright pattern and color that would leave our window molding unobstructed and allow plenty of light into the room. I thought about several different options before I found the right solution---Roman blinds. When fully released, this type of shade completely covers the window, but not the surrounding woodwork. When drawn, as much or little window can be exposed as you like---letting in as much light as you want.

Our kitchen is at the back of our house, and we have a high fence surrounding the yard, so privacy was not a concern when we were picking out a type of blind.  I would not recommend using this type of shade in the front of your house unless you don't mind living in an aquarium.

For someone who has never made blinds before, I found these fairly easy to make. Careful measuring is key to getting Roman shades to work out right so don't rush if you decide to take on this project for yourself.

Here is what you need:

Small dowel rods Fabric for the shade Fabric for the lining Small plastic rings (usually sold in the home decorating section of your arts and craft store) Nylon string Iron Pencil Ruler Measuring tape Curtain cleats Screw eyes Staple gun 1 X 2 board (the length will depend on your measurements)

1. First, measure the height and width of the window. To do this measure only the inside of the window---this Roman shade only covers the actual window, not the wood that frames it. My big windows measured 27 inches wide and 67 inches high.

2. Cut the shade fabric. The shade fabric should be cut five inches longer than your measurement for the height and two inches wider than the measured width. I cut my shade fabric 72 inches long and 29 inches wide.

3. Cut the fabric for the lining. The fabric for the lining should be as long as the shade fabric and an inch less wide. The measurement for my lining was 72 inches long and 28 inches wide.

4. Roman blinds create folded pleats when drawn. Rigid rods inserted into channels (or pockets) sewn on the lining of the shade keep these pleats straight and even. First, measure and mark a straight line to indicate the exact length of your blind. This will be five inches from the top edge (remember, we added an extra five inches to the length).

5. The next step is to measure the location for the channels on the lining. The space between channels on Roman shades can be between 8 and 12 inches (you are only marking these lines within the actual of the size of your window---for now ignore that extra 5 inches that we tacked on to the length). The larger the space between the channels, the larger the folded pleats will appear. Your first measurement should be from the bottom edge of the shade to the first channel. This area should be half the size of the space between your remaining channels.  My channels were 10 inches apart so this first measurement was 5 inches.

6. Mark these measurements very carefully. I used a metal ruler and marked these distances several times across my lining fabric. This helped to ensure that I had very straight lines to follow later.

7. Next, cut fabric for the channels from lining fabric. First cut 2 inch strips the same length as the width of your lining. My strips were 2 inches wide and 28 inches long.

8. Fold over and iron a half inch on the top and bottom of each strip.

9. Align a folded edge of each strip just beneath the marks you made on the lining (do not place a strip on the top line that you marked to indicate the full length of your shade). Pin the folded edge open so that the folded crease sits on top of the line.

10. Use a sewing machine to stitch inside the folded crease on each pinned strip. Along one edge, leave a half inch of each strip unstitched.

11. Fold and iron each strip up over the line you just sewed.

12. Now you are ready to sew the lining to the shade fabric! Lay out your lining with the fabric strips facing the right side of your shade fabric. Your lining fabric should be one inch narrower than your shade fabric Center the lining fabric on the larger shade fabric, this will leave an extra half inch of shade fabric along each edge. Pin the bottom edges together and sew, leaving a half inch on either side unstitched.

13. Pin the edges of the lining and the shade fabric together. Because the shade fabric is a bit bigger than the lining, this will make the shade fabric feel a bit bulky. Don't worry, you'll want that extra fullness later.

14. Sew the shade and lining together on the edge where you did not leave half an inch of your fabric strips unstitched. In doing this you will also be sewing across the strips that you just ironed.

15. Sew the other edge of shade and lining together, being careful NOT to catch the edges of the channel strips.

16. Turn the entire shade inside out and press your seams. You will be pressing the half inch of extra shade fabric so it folds around the seam to the lining side of the shade. You should now have the shade sewn together on the bottom and long edges. Each rod channel is now secured along the bottom edge, folded up and sewn into one side seam of the shade.

17. Pin the top, free edge of each channel down. Sew as closely to the top folded edge of the channel as possible. You will be stitching through both the lining and the front shade fabric at this time. Now you have pockets to hold your dowels.

18. On each pocket channel you will sew small plastic curtain rings. My blinds were not very wide, so I chose to place my rings five inches in from the edge on each side of the blind. Be careful to stitch the rings only on the channel, not catching the lining and shade fabric. Now the lining side of the shade should appear to have two rows of plastic rings.

19. Cut each dowel an inch shorter than the width of your shade.

20. Slide a dowel into each channel through the open end. Fold the extra fabric under on the open end and whip-stitch it closed.

21. Cut your 1 X 4 board to the width of your shade (the width of your window).

22. Line the narrow width of the board up just below the line you marked showing the exact length of your blind. Wrap the extra five inches of fabric around the board and use a staple gun to secure it in place.

23. On the wide underside of the wrapped board, measure in the same distance from each edge that you stitched your plastic rings. Screw a screw eye in at each of these points (you want these eyes to line up with your rows of plastic rings).

24. Decide which edge of your blind you would like your pull cord to fall on. One inch from that edge of your board screw in another eye screw.

25. Cut two lengths of nylon cord that measure about twice the length of your shade or a little more.

26. Knot a nylon cord on the bottom plastic ring. Thread it through the remaining rings in that row and through the screw eye at the top. Do this on the other side as well.

27. Thread the cord farthest from the extra screw eye through the screw eye for the next row of rings. Thread both cords through the last screw eye.

You just made roman blinds!

To mount them, I used two L brackets screwed to the fabric wrapped board and the inside of my window.

Once they were mounted and hanging loose, I knotted my two cords together just past the last screw eye---now they can be pulled at the same time with even pressure.

Test them by pulling on the cord. It took a few tries before my fabric trained itself to fold properly, but after two or three pulls, the pleats worked wonderfully.

The final step is to mount drapery cleats to the inside edge of the window so you can tie your shades when they are opened at the level you want them.

Voila! New window treatments that change the entire feel of our kitchen!

I realize that there are a lot of instructions above, but once you get going, it all makes sense and comes together very quickly. I spent between two and three hours on each shade and the results were well worth it.

What are you waiting for? Fire up your sewing machine and get rid of those old, dusty window treatments that have been bugging you for years. It's time.

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