Diary of Spain in Lockdown - Window dressing

Monday 20^th April

I’VE caught the coronavirus spin-off bug of home improvement. Nearly five years after moving to Valencia we finally have curtains in our bedroom! Tonight when I get into bed I won’t have to screw my eyes up tightly so the streetlight outside doesn’t blind me. Of course, I could just close the shutters, this is Spain after all.

For years I dithered, I ummed, I ahhed, I looked at different fabrics, I rummaged around markets, I searched online for that perfect print. In the end I decided that if I didn’t order some fabric to make them while confined at home, then I never would. And it was surprisingly simple. I ordered the material before Easter from www.telaslatonelada.com and it was here 24 hours later (the fabric I chose was called campanillas). The lining we bought on Amazon and that was also pretty quick to arrive. Now I had no excuse!

I used special ‘ruching’ tape’ to put the curtain rail through, rather than using the curtain rings and hooks which were already here. The shoving-the-pole-through-the-back method also has the added benefit of hiding a fair amount of the 80s pine curtain rails we inherited with the house. I already had the ‘ruching’ tape, but there wasn’t quite enough for all four curtains so I made some tabs out of the same fabric for. The technique was really simple and the result just as good.

After my first attempt at making drapes I’m itching to start my next curtain project, although in my bedroom there’s still the most fun part to be done: the matching scatter cushions!

I hadn’t been particularly bothered by our lack of drapery before, but now, when I look at the curtainless windows in other rooms of the house, they seem naked, undressed.