Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers’ seasons run?”
-John Donne
Yes, yes. I did quote Donne just now. ManNorth quite likes Donne’s poetry which provides one justification. I also didn’t think that Churchill’s iron curtain speech would be an appropriate segue into this post’s topic. ;)
We purchased the curtains in late August but stubbornly refused to pay for the single kind of expensive curtain rods that were available in town (or to purchase ugly, cheap and flimsy aluminum rods which was our other option) and devised our own plan that would require lumber to be brought up with us from Prairie Town during our New Year’s trip and a wee bit of creativity and elbow grease from us. Of course, we not only love building things and projects that we can do together but also making these projects more complicated than they need to be so this fit right in!
We knew exactly what we needed when we came up with our design. We wanted to block sunlight that would shine up towards the ceiling along the top edge of the curtain rod as well as providing a good base from which to hang our blinds. It would be nice too, if the contraptions could also serve as additional shelving. Something like this:
(Excuse the coffee stain.)
ManNorth did the honours and cut the boards I’d marked, routed the decorative edges and used our jigsaw to cut the s-curves in the side supports.
I had great fun routing out ¼ inch holes to counter sink all the screws and less fun using our hacksaw (of all things) to cut all the doweling to cover said screws. I had the most fun putting it all together and then staining both units. The “red mahogany” stain was supposed to be a bit reddish but it came out simply dark brown, which was also just fine. Staining wood is one of my favourite things as I love seeing the grain come out as the stain goes on. I wish I'd known though, that wood glue doesn't pick up stain well and a few areas along the joints now show all the glue that I smeared on the wood when I tried to wipe it off after it leaked out when I attached all the boards. Ah well.
...and voila! Scratch another project off our to-do list.
For the curious, here are the materials used:
Tools: router, jigsaw, hacksaw, drill (which also doubled as a screwdriver), hammer, sander.
Lumber: 2 8ft X 9 inch X ¾ inch boards, ¼ inch doweling, 4 wooden drawer knobs (cheaper than buying finials), 2 5ft mop handles (I couldn’t find any doweling long enough), 8 ½ inch wooden craft “buttons” (to cover the mounting screws instead of doweling because they can be popped out when we need to take the shelving down)
Misc. Gear: 32 1 ½ inch wood screws (plus 4 de-headed 1 inch screws to attach the wooden drawer knobs/finials to the ends of the mop handles that were used as curtain rods), wood glue, wood filler, plastic gloves, wood stain, brush, varathane, patience, absent neighbours.
4 comments:
oh my god, these are so cool!!! I emailed your post to Mr. Skookumchick. Now that they're up, do you have any advice or redesign comments? Or plans? ;-)
Whee! Thanks for the compliments.
They were surprisingly easy to put together, although we benefited by having the right tools handy. A garage or workshed would have been marvelous to work in. The first time we used the router (without a dust collector attachment) all the wood shavings and dust covered the apartment. For a week afterwards the apartment smelled of spruce every time we turned on an oven burner. For this project we hauled all the wood to ManNorth's workplace and did the cutting in its garage. Of course I forgot about routing all the screw holes so I ended up doing those in the apartment after all.
A few other recommendations:
Drill all holes before staining and before applying varathane. -Particularly if, like me, you put them up before the varathane is completely dry. I had two holes to drill to attach each set of blinds and forgot to drill them on one set before staining everything. The dust stuck to the varathane, of course!
It also would have been really nice to have a stud finder as I wanted to be sure that they'd be firmly attached to the wall. I had to assume that the boards used to frame the windows extended straight up to the ceiling and measured out the holes for the mounting screws to hit those spots. I think I missed by just a smidgen with one side of one of the windows as the drill went in a bit too easily and may have only drilled into the drywall. (Hopefully there won't be a later post about everything coming crashing down on our plants!)
I measured everything to fit our windows using the wood we had on hand but would happily share the plans, although I'll have to write 'em up to be intelligible to anyone other than me. Do you want them? (Seriously!?)
Finally, it occurs to me that anyone living in a major city could probably find units for sale as shelves. I seem to remember seeing something similar in a craft shop once. They had all sorts of furniture and knick knacks put together and ready for painting and finishing. All one would need to do to convert them to hang curtains would be to drill holes for the curtain rods.
Perfect! I love the colour!
FYI - if you missed the stud you might want to put a drywall anchor in (I could mail you some if you like). No stud or anchor = will fall down someday - even if you don't put anything on the shelf (which clearly you must).
Yay! They look just lovely!! What a great idea!
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