Gazebo/Pergola Drapes (Installed)

I have to admit I made these for my daughter for her Pergola at Christmas but now that spring has finally arrived and we are going to install in the next couple of weeks it's time to post.

This was a fun project.  I started out with the following supplies:

Two packages of grommets

Martha Stewart stencils

Four colours (all in Kristen's yard)

One package of 9' x 12' drop cloths

Because as you know I live in a very small space I am usually working in the living room for larger projects.   DO NOT DO WHAT I DID HERE!!! I stencilled this on my hardwood floors - when I picked up the drop cloth there was paint all over my floor (what a dummy)! ! ! I did get it all cleaned up though just with soapy water! THANK GOODNESS!

The plan was to go from darkest at the bottom, moving into light and then back to the dark ending with dark again at the top and this plan worked very well until I had to do the opposite side.  I simply worked with the stencil until I got back to the black again and stopped wherever it stopped (obviously math was not used to calculate anything here) . . .

 I KNEW I had to make it opposite but because I'm usually in such a hurry to get everything done I made the opposite drape EXACTLY the same WHICH DOES NOT WORK because when they are hung it would look absolutely WRONG.  So I had to cut the top off of one of the drapes to "even it out" so to speak because of the way the pattern worked out. I know this probably doesn't make sense but if you were here you'd get it!

 This is just a close-up of the variation of colour . . .

 So off to the Beast I go to re-hem the "wrong" drape and we're off to the next step.

 Do I need to say anything about this picture . . .

Now you have to "set" the painted drapes so that they don't fade or "run" if you forget them out in the rain.  I used a simple heat method - truly don't even know if this is going to work but I'll give it a whirl. 

You need wax paper, a cloth on your ironing board so the paint doesn't go ON to the ironing board when you are setting it; and an iron on the NO STEAM setting.

Ironing board, wax paper and an old towel on the ironing board to protect it

No steam setting

Place the drape on the board "painted side up"; place wax paper OVER the painted drape and then press on high heat

Now on to the grommets - these are SUPER EASY to put on. What isn't super easy FOR ME is the math.  I measure the drapes and divide the inches by 8 (because I'm using 8 grommets - ALWAYS USE EVEN NUMBERS OF GROMMETS) and then I place them on the fabric and play with it until I feel like I have it fairly balanced - I HATE MATH!

I have a basic idea that they should be approximately 8" apart

Then I lay them out evenly 8" apart to see how close they come to the ends and start adjusting

The first and last ones should be approximately no more than 2" from the end

Now that I have them in place I follow the simple instructions on the back of the grommet package

Here's the first cut and you can see to the right hand side of the pic I have pencilled in the next one and so on . . . all the way to the other side.

As promised the drapes are now installed - not without a little "discussion" between my daughter and myself with respect to "how to" and "who's going to"!  But they're installed and here are the pics to prove it.

Pergola (Before)

Blocks and Hooks installed

Pergola After

LOVE!

TOTAL (DRAPERY) COST:  Approximately $60.00

TOTAL (SEWING/CREATING) TIME:  Approximately 4 hours



TOTAL (INSTALLATION) COST:  $40.00

TOTAL (INSTALLATION) TIME:  2 hours - 1 for shopping (because I told you we should have gone to Home Depot in the first place) and 1 hour for figuring out how to get the hooks to mount on the pergola so the drapes would (or wouldn't) slide off!