Friday, July 11, 2008

Another Finished by Friday: Roller Shades for the Front Porch



Here is my other Friday Finish: I replaced the old, rotten roller shades on the front porch with new fabric ones made of this polished cotton paisley print by Stanley King Studios. I have been hauling this fabric around from house to house since our Onyx Drive house in Palmdale, California, where I used it for drapes in the master bedroom, with a matching shower curtain. I'm so glad I still had it!



This is the other half of the front porch. You have already seen the left side, which is now our sewing area. I did replace all the blinds with these, so it's a match all across. It's so easy to re-fabric an old roller shade as long as you still have all the parts of the old one! You just tear off the old fabric, cut new fabric to fit, sew a rod pocket at the bottom for the weight rod, staple it onto the core and put the shade back up again.

I had to take down all the aprons to rehang them in a more apron-friendly manner. While I am at it, I'm contemplating painting. That pale pink/lavender isn't doing anything for the place, plus the ceiling has tons of water stains. Of course, if we're gonna paint, we should probably fix the wiring, and add some outlets... and if we're gonna do that, we might as well add better lighting, and maybe a ceiling fan or two... and then drywall, and if it's drywall, we might as well insulate the walls... AIYEEEEE! This is how we get into giant expensive projects! Anyway, I'm not sure what color to paint it. A forest green would be pretty but I'd lose that lovely light out there to sew by.

3 comments:

Shallowsister said...

Pretty, I love paisley fabric. I didn't know it was that easy to change a shade. Thanks for the tip.

Mrs. Mac said...

I love the simplicity of roller shades. Our guest room, dining room and masterbath all have vintage inspired ones made from cloth from the Handwerk shade company out of Oregon ... have you ever checked out their shades? They have stenciled ones too. Your shades came out beautiful ... I vaguely remember that fabric. What ever did you do with the yards and yards of sheers you made for your living room at the Onyx home?

masterofthe said...

I didn't know it was possible to use fabric in there. I just blogged about porch blinds and this is the first time that I actually saw one like yours although I've seen a lot of porch blinds that used fabric window shades.

Unique and cute to look at although I'd prefer a lighter color for more light reflection in the afternoon.