That’s how many yards I calculated for eight living room curtains. It usually comes out to five yards per window (or sliding door) for two floor-length panels that can be hung high and wide. So five yards times four windows/sliders = twenty yards total (eight panels: two for the big back window, two for each of the two sliding doors to the right when facing the window, and two for the sliding door to the left that leads to a small balcony). That’s where the 20-yard number came from — a lot of fabric (60 feet). Even at a bargain price of $7 per yard, that would have been $140, not counting rods and hardware. Extra-wide upholstery fabric under $15 a yard is hard to find, and at that price the bill jumps toward $300.
Yikes. That’s probably why our living room sliders sat bare for more than six months.
We also kept those party pom-poms from Clara’s party in the sunroom until this weekend, when they finally moved to the playroom. But back to the curtains. At first we thought we wanted bright, bold fabric. We’ve been having a lot of fun with color in this house: soft gray walls, darker gray beams, a dark gray sofa — we thought colorful curtains would be a good counterpoint. Then we added some inexpensive bright art, Kermit (our big green wool shag rug), some brightly colored pillows, and two gleaming silver lamps behind the console we built. The room felt lively enough, so we decided not to add bright curtains after all.
Our green rug was enough of a color pop, so we shifted toward tone-on-tone texture for the curtains: not too bright, and affordable.
We realized we’d already bought tone-on-tone leafy panels from Ikea a few months earlier — they were on sale for $29 a pair (down from $49), so we’d picked up two packs intending to use them in the playroom someday. Since we already had four of the eight panels and liked them (they worked out to $15 per panel), the plan was to hang the four we owned, then grab two more packs at Ikea and be done. We bought oil-rubbed bronze rods and ring hooks from Target and hung the four panels on the two sliding doors on the right wall. They needed ironing and hemming, but we loved the soft leafy look and the price: $15 per panel. Sold. We only needed two more two-packs.
A day later we asked John’s mom, who would be near Ikea, to pick up two more packs. I checked ikea.com for the product name and played my little game of inventing Ikea-style names — Vika Lund and Skiv Rast — while searching. Nothing. They weren’t online. I tried to reassure myself that some in-store items don’t show up online, but the next day John’s mom called from the curtain aisle: the panels had been discontinued. They hadn’t been sold since April.
That kicked off a frantic eBay/Craigslist/Google search. I found a few two-panel packs for around $75 each, which seemed unreasonable compared to the $29 sale price for the Alvine Kottar panels. I allowed myself a bit of moping and Oreo comfort-food therapy while wallowing in the thought that the curtain problem would never be solved.
Then, sitting on the sofa with crumbs, I kept glancing at the four panels we had hung. My main complaint was that they looked too wide and bunched when hung open. A thought came: what if I cut each panel down the middle to create eight panels from the four we already had? The inner voice warned against ruining them, but I tested the idea first by unclipping a panel, folding it in half, and rehanging it to simulate the narrower width. It looked great — not too full, and perfect for our situation since we rarely draw them closed and prefer to keep everything open for light. Folding revealed more of the pretty leafy pattern rather than endless folds.
I got out my fabric scissors and cut each panel down the middle. They’d been folded in the packaging, which gave me an accurate center crease to follow, so the panels ended up matching. I hemmed them using my usual iron-and-sew method (no pins), and this time I ironed the fold twice before sewing. Hemming the sides of all eight panels took about twenty minutes once they were prepped; the ironing probably took another thirty.
After stitching the 1/2″ side hems — which matched Ikea’s original hem — I washed them on cold and tumble-dried low to pre-shrink them. I took them directly from the dryer while still slightly damp to avoid extra wrinkling, clipped them to the oil-rubbed rods (Target rods and ring clips), and hung the rods 14″ wider than the trim for the main sliders and window. For the balcony slider with less wall space, we went 8″ wider. We placed the rods three inches below the crown molding so they’d align at the same height and draw the eye upward without crowding the beams. I like the high-and-wide look of oil-rubbed bronze rods — like dark eyeliner on a window.
Next I pinned the bottoms so the panels just grazed the floor and hemmed them. I used a wider 3–4″ base hem to give them a more polished look and applied iron-on hem tape for those thick bottoms so there would be no visible stitching from the front. Hemming the bottoms in place from the rod took about half an hour for all panels — no need to unclip and rehang.
We didn’t want puddling or extra-long panels because two of the three sliders are used frequently and we didn’t want fabric dragging underfoot. The result: soft, almost sheer tone-on-tone curtains that don’t overwhelm the room.
In photos the sunlight can blow them out, but in person the leafy pattern reads nicely across the room. From farther away the leaves appear smaller and the curtains blend smoothly with the rest of the decor. You can also spot the lesser-seen slider on the left that opens to a small patio we hope to renovate someday.
The curtains’ delicacy contrasts well with the chunky rustic wood console we built, and they play nicely with the big round mirror nearby. I added a few blue accents with hydrangeas clipped from the patio and two blue decorating books to bring in subtle color. The hydrangeas look lovely but wilt quickly; I’d clipped them five days earlier and some were already fading.
Pillows moved around for texture and layering; none cost extra — they’re nomads in our house and get shuffled from the playroom and sunroom. The room now balances happy color (the shaggy green rug and bright art we may tweak), contrast (the dark sofa, gray beams, chunky console, oil-rubbed bronze mirror), and softness (faux sheepskin, white frames, patterned curtains, lighter pillows). We’ll feel even more finished once we build or refinish a media cabinet and refinish the floors someday.
In short: we love the curtains. They create a cozy, inviting atmosphere — perfect for flopping on the sofa and eating Oreos — and they cost $58 for the four original panels, which we cut to make eight. That breaks down to $7.25 per finished panel. If we’d made them from scratch, we’d need fabric under about $1.45 per yard to match that deal, or $2.90 per yard if planning to cut fabric in half from a very wide bolt. Not impossible, but tricky.
This room has evolved a lot in six months. When we moved in it looked very different, and now the curtains help tie the room together. Admittedly, the physical work of cutting, ironing, hemming, and hanging probably burned only a fraction of the calories consumed during my curtain-related cookie binge. It’s also hard to capture how cozy the room feels in photos; the size makes it look less intimate than it does in real life. At night the lamps give everything a warm glow.
Have you ever split curtains down the middle or added length with banding? Have you run into discontinued Ikea items before? For us, the sale price and fortunate fit made the happy ending possible: simple, soft, affordable curtains that actually suit the room.