Our backyard if pretty barren. No trees, and all the plants, are plants that I started from seed, so nothing is higher than my knees. I was feeling exposed, and hot from direct sunlight. One day Juddah and I were laying in the back yard, and he said, "I can't see, the sun is too bright in my eyes." So we rigged up a sheet on some bar stools. As we were laying there I thought, "oh I need a hide away. Somewhere comfy to sit and enjoy the great Northwest summer air." On "top Design" a reality show on bravo, one challenge was to make a beach cabana. They looked so inviting. The way the wind blew the material around, and the comfy couches, and rugs. I rememeber watching it this past winter and thinking "wouldnt that be so fun?"
First I thought I would build a structure off the side of our house. Then I thought, wait, I have this great porch that I haven't done anything with. So I pulled out my giant linen curtains (I bought them at that sub-division sale. They were $7 for all four panels. When I first saw them, I thought, "Wow that is a lot of nice linen, for far cheaper than I could buy one yard, I can find something to make it into" but since then, they have just been in a box)I measured the curtains, and they were so long. Since I will be taking them down eventually, I didn't want to cut the fabric. I just did a quick stitch, and all the curtains have more than a foot of hem. I just used a staple gun across the top. I really just did a quick job. I don't want to buy curtain rods for my back porch, so I figured the staples would be easy to put up and take down.
Juddah and the porch. The boys and I spend a lot of time in the back yard. It is so nice to have an "out door room" now. I want to get a futon, or something comfortable to take cat naps on.
I love the way the curtains look when the breeze gets under them.
You can't quite make it out, but the trellis' I made for my two pots of peas are in the same shape that the curtains are when they are open. When the peas are fully grown, I think it will look really pretty.
I hope this is a good photo log of what I did with the curtains. It isn't anything fancy, but I really love the way it came out. I have become quite an expert at making do with what I have, to make something I want!
