Just call me Martha Stewart

Ever since moving into our new home, we've been living without window treatments. Our house backs up to a field, so other than the farmer, no one is ever behind our house. Because of that, we have been very slow to do anything about covering the windows. The only problem with that is that the afternoon sun has been heating up the house... it kind of defeats the 2x6 framed exterior walls full of insulation.

The lady of the house has made it clear that she really wants to do roman shades on all the windows. I have no problem with the look of the roman shades, I just have a problem with the price tag, between $300 and $600 per window. The price is relative to the fabric that is chosen, and she always seems to be attracted to the high $$$ fabrics! Multiply that by 10 windows and we would be spending a large sum of money on window treatments.

Those of you who have spent anytime with me will know that I don't want to spend that kind of coin on something like window treatments. A new TV? Heck yeah. Plants for the yard? Sure. Window treatment? No thanks, I can live with miniblinds.

Of course, the do it yourselfer in me decided to do some online research on what is takes to make your own... There was only one big obstacle: Sewing. My wife isn't exactly the sewing type, and she isn't afraid to admit it. I can at least attach a button, but that is about it. Then I found the magic solution to our problem: double sided iron on adhesive. Heck yeah, WE can handle that.

After examining the display shades at Lowes, we decided to experiment with making a shade for one of the guest rooms. After hitting a few fabric stores, we found a fabric that Karen liked and some black out material for the back side. A quick trip to Lowes for wood dowels, cord, and other miscellaneous parts and we were ready to give it a go.

After getting the fabric cut down and glued to size, I was tasked with using the wood dowels to create the hobbles (spelling?) that give the roman shade it's shape. Everything was then tied together with the cord and attached to a 1x2 that we screwed into the window frame. There was a definite learning curve, but the end results turned out pretty darn good (if I say so myself). AND we saved a good bit of money, figuring that we have around $70 in it (that number will go down if we make more because some of of the parts that we bought were in quantities large enough to do multiple shades). That is much better than the $300 low bid and WAY better than the $600 high bid.

The only negative that I have been able to identify is that the pull cord has to be wrapped around a cleat to keep the shade open. There isn't the mechanism that a manufactured shade would have to lock it in place when you stop pulling the cord. However, I have seen some people butcher cheap blinds for the mechanism, that could be version 2.0...





After a Saturday full of interior decor/arts and crafts, Sunday was the exact opposite. It was a total "Man" day... I took Karen to her first NASCAR race! We got up early and drove to Indiana for the Brickyard 400 at the famous Indianapolis Motor Speedway. It was hot outside, but our seats were shaded by an overhang. Before the race, we were able to walk across the front straight and pit lane to the infield area. Here is a picture looking up pit lane:



As we were driving home Sunday after the race, I started laughing when I thought about the extreme difference between Saturday and Sunday. Could we find two activities that are more different? This trip got me looking into acquiring Indy 500 tickets. I signed up for the ticket waiting list last night, who knows how long it will take to be able to actually buy tickets.