With a natural linen, your choices are endless. What other colors are in your room? If you have any red, blues, yellows, and so forth, you could pick up the colors in the fabric for the trim. Your best bet is to look at home decor fabrics in similar weight, like linen, to see what they have and go from there. You could also use a sturdy cotton with linen, as long as it is home decor weight and not sewing weight.

You say you have 5 windows. Do you mean that you have 10 panels like this? If so, double them up on 2 of the windows, and buy new curtains for the other 3.

You will now be getting custom drapes that nobody else will have..

Years ago (sometime in the 80's), I found $5.00 drapes at a discount linen store. None of them were wide enough for the windows in the house so I bought two pairs for each window and sewed the panels together. You could not tell they were once 2 pairs!

A few pointers:

The rods should not be hung at the height of the window frame but just below the ceiling, so your panels are too short

Based on the width of your window, you should have ordered 2 sets of panels for each side of the window otherwise the draperies take on the appearance of simply sheets hung on the windows.

Your rods should extend about 12" beyond the window frames so the panels stack covering the window frame and then extend out beyond the windows.

Not sure if you should have selected lined panels so the draperies looked like more impressive.

See how these panels below look compared to the appearance of your drapery panels.

To dress up drapes you can always stitch ribbon on to the face of the panels.

Completely disagree with the levitating rods....that is something that's been floating around online for a while that everyone is taking as gospel and regurgitating. I hate it.

It looks like a receding hairline to me.

It depends on what look you are going for. My living room and dining room are open to each other but I have decorated each room differently. Different paint colors and I will be making different colored drapes as well. But--since you can see each room from the other, I have chosen colors that go well together. Silvery gray in the living room and Newport blue in the dining room. Both rooms have ultra bright white trim.

Do you have any photos?

^^ see what I mean? This stuff is just like a bad rash :)

Wide is fine...don't levitate them...

ETA if your rods are telescoping, you may be able to get away with widening them enough so that some of it sits on the outer part of the bracket...you would have to fiddle with it to see if it's acceptable to you...you could scoot both panels over to one side to give you an idea of fullness and where you want them to sit.

It does seem to be a common thing to just trash what someone already has instead of improving it and saving money. We are in a throw away society where too many good things are just thrown out.

Well penny, it all boils down to window height, window trim, budget and ceiling height. You don't want to hang the rod so it cuts off the trim and you don't want the curtains to look like high water pants (like the OP's window). So, if you can't afford custom, it's better to get longer stock curtains and hang the rod higher.

IMO, slight levitation looks better than high water pants or strangled trim. YMMV.

Using grommets are a personal choice. My daughter loves them and I don't but I do not begrudge people who love them.

Bingo Cor! Since I am a professional seamstress and know fabrics, I could never buy cheap curtains just to save money when I can make them with much higher quality fabric for about the same price as the cheap ones.

Cor, Target's textured and lined curtains are actually very nice for the price. No one is suggesting you buy cheap looking curtains. There are many at Target that look more substantial than the ones that you have on your window.

Right d_gw....that was the question originally asked. How to add umph because she can sew. At least that's what I read :)

Cor, you may have to take a panel down and travel to a few shops with it...do you have an upholstery district where you are?

Also yes...grommets. Some love them and some don't. Also depends on the formality of the room, for me.

I just don't see those curtains being worth the time and the effort. There are plenty of nicer, appropriately sized, ready made options. IMO.

Where do you live BTW?

I'm not sure how important it is to have all of your curtains with grommets. I will be making different styled drapes for my living room and dining room. I may just go with a big valance for the dining room and more formal drapes for the living room.

BTW for those of you who do not know fabrics--Natural linen is one of the finest fabrics to make into drapes. The fabric is not cheap!

The OP said her curtains are linen blend, not natural linen.

I have also sewn with linen blends and what I love about it not being all linen is the fact that the fabric does not wrinkle as easily as natural linen. What I have sewn with is just as good of quality as natural linen, without all the wrinkles.

I live in Dayton, Ohio and I'm your neighbor. Is there any way I can help you (I'm retired)?

I would start with some samples that you can get online...If you're careful, and with Bevs fabric expertise, you could probably narrow down the blends/weight beforehand...?

I'm willing to help you make the correct fabric choices, if you want additional help. Start with fabric.com - I have been buying fabric, both home decor and clothing fabric for about 18 years. They also will send free samples on some of their fabrics. All you have to do is request it.

Cor, If you want to add a band of fabric to the sides of your panels, you can install more grommets. I found these on the Joann website, but you might find them in a local fabric store or Wal-Mart.

You might also want to check out the Home Essential Fabrics at Joann's. It's 6.99 a yard and they have hundreds of choices in both solids and prints. Here are a couple I grabbed for you to look at-

And if you want to add lining, check the Sailrite website before you buy it at a fabric store. I know I got a better deal there than I would have at Joann's, even with having to pay shipping.

Best of luck with your project.

Cor if you live in Lancaster County there are fabric stores. Not great ones, but Goods is an old fashioned general store and has tons of calico and quilting fabric. What I found out is they order other fabrics for you if you buy enough. I got a bolt of cotton duck upholstery fabric for slipcovers at half the price of NYC stores. This was years ago and I asked the women in the fabric section and they had tons of books with fabric samples and you can choose from the books. I am not sure they still do that, but you might want to give them a call.

I think I get this...2 rooms with 5 Windows total? How many panels do you have? And how wide are these panels? Are all the windows the same? My opinion: rooms don't have to match exactly, they just need to look intentional. Panels in both rooms, etc. You might be able to retrofit all of these panels to make things work, but we really need some pictures of each room in this open floor plan.

I don’t think the two rooms have to match in style or hanging method. They just need to relate, similar to what you did with the accent colors.

You could make shades and valance for the room you are using as a play area, then move the extra panels to the other room. Tie the two together by using the valance fabric in that room too. It could be a valance, a tie back , a border, piping, a throw pillow.

This is just one example. You sew. The universe is yours. People who sew. Unite!

Could these be re-worked into a set of... not sure how to describe this... Inner sheers with a second rod of outer, more full curtains that are mounted higher? I get wanting to re-purpose them, but to me they are so neutral to begin with the options are unlimited. Certainly you haven't boxed yourself into anything at this point. I like the idea of tying the rooms together and I don't see any reason why these curtains are preventing that.

my advice: look online / wherever for drapes that you actually like. note the price, including shipping. now look at the costs involved in remaking yours. forget what you've already paid for them, just the costs for the upgrading.

fabric and notions are not cheap, and you dont know if you'll like the result. even charging yourself nothing for the labor, i am 99% sure its still less expensive to find another use for the fabric from these drapes, and buy exactly what you like, that can be returned if you dont like it.

i am a sewer, and i'm always gobsmacked by what my basket of goodies costs me, whether i'm at joanne's or at the local independent fabric store.

I wouldn't add a border to the sides for a couple of reasons. One it needs to go to the top, which you can't do without removing the grommets. If you add it next to the edge, because the sides go in towards the window, so will the border and it'll just get swashed or come out at a weird angle.

I would add fabric to the bottom, starting at the bottom of the windows. This will look cohesive all around. It'll look blocky if you start it somewhere else. You could add some covered microcord between for a nice detail.

That's a lot of windows! It looks like you are only looking for the curtains to act as a highlight to the windows so I wouldn't worry about the 'skimpiness'. I would raise the curtain rod a bit, and perhaps extend to the outsides a little and add a deep border of a pattern incorporating both colours of the adjoining room walls. Since your furniture is very neutral it would add a pop of interest and tie the rooms together. A fabric similar to the geometric Home Essentials fabric from Joann's shown by cdee18 or a pattern incorporating the blue and gold with other colours especially the colour of your chairs in the blue room would be lovely. A few throw cushions to mix and match those colours and you'd be all set!

Your rooms are lovely! What do you think about adding a border of striped linen, perhaps something subtle like this?

I can't really tell what color your linen is, so be sure to order swatches first!

I found this at fabric.com: Telio Tuscany Pinstripe Linen

Good luck with whatever you decide. Happy Houzzing!

millalm Skimpy drapery panels look cheap whether they open or are fixed.

I agree that you need to buy new panels. By the time you buy additional fabric you won't really be saving any money. You could use the existing panels in other ways so they won't be wasted. How about turning them into shower curtains or cushions.

Look. This is all subjective. If you sew, you know what can be done for what. You know the market where you are. You know, (WELL!) the clearance section of your local fabric store. And you know the costs of diy vs ready made.

Some of us have more time than money and some of us enjoy getting custom for ready-made.

Everyone's different, folks.

For me, I do enjoy it and I have the time and I will not waste because that's not the right way to live in the world. Occasionally I am forced to get something off the shelf, but I make sure that I can't make it for less, first.

Sometimes I do buy from Ikea (in fact I will be for my family room as I'm not looking for anything specific for this room)...I think it's a great resource for large quantities of drapes for very little...but your choices are limited there.

jmho

Check out this blog, she has step-by-step instructions for window treatments (and everything else)...and she's frugal.

www.addicted2decorating.com

another vote for Kristi :a lot of ideas, where to buy stuff etc https://www.addicted2decorating.com/diy-greek-key-trim-curtains-video-create-a-greek-key-design-with-twill-tape-or-ribbon.html

Cor, I saw the mock up valance on your kitchen window post. That fabric which you said was from an old valance is the type of fabric I was suggesting you add a deep border with. It has all of the colours in your two rooms including the 2 chairs! I hope you won't be put off by the comments here, since your question was to fellow sew-ers about how to add umph to your existing panels :)