Turning a Boring Shade into a Modern Window Accent

 

Ok, so I am currently working on a makeover of our living space. While, I am not ready to share a final view of the space, I am ready to share with you an update to the window treatments. I made the pelmet boxes, two falls ago, after finally finding the perfect curtains and fabric accents. I really liked them but had no idea at the time what I was going use as the bottom layer for these windows.  And for the past year and a half, I have had nothing at this window. Yep, you read that correctly. Nothing. And it wasn't for lack of trying. I just couldn't figure out what to put there.  I just put up some plain white mini blinds at the smaller windows but I never intended to leave them there. I just needed something at those windows since they faced the neighbor behind us. The big window looks out over the park so no one would peek in.  Well unless you are being very nosey when you turn around in the cul de sac.

Fast forward to today, I have become completely obsessed with Greek Key Design. So much so that I started with adding a little bit of it  here and there.  And by here and there, I mean just this accent strip to the pelmet boxes. I'll be honest I wasn't exactly sure how to incorporate into my then current design for our living space.  I didn't completely abandon the idea but I really struggled with how I could make this work. Other than adding that tiny accent strip, I wasn't sure where else I was going to be able to add it.

In my normal scrolls of Pinterest - I came across these Greek key shades.  Aren't they beautiful!! Are you oogling over them? I sure was. My design wheels starting turning very fast. I instantly new I had to have them in our living space. They would be the perfect addition to our windows. And they would be one more Greek key accent piece. Double score!

And once I found out that these were just affordable roller shades that could be purchased off the shelf at  Home Depot or Lowes. Off I went, to Lowes.  The shade was $24.97, I felt that was a great deal considering that other window treatments for a 69"+ wide window are very expensive.

I will be quite honest that while I loved the look of the shade, I wasn't sold on the idea of using duct tape. Don't get me wrong, I love duct tape but I am not sure I wanted that in my living space. I had found the below pin a while back when I had considered making greek key accent pillows. I haven't completely given up on that idea, I just tabled it while I was I figuring out how to incorporate greek key design elements into other parts of our  home décor.

I loved the ribbon used. And decided that I wanted to use ribbon instead of duct tape on my greek key shade. I loved Sarah M Dorsey's tutorial for how to guide you through making a greek key pattern. Ready to make them yourself?

Things you will need -

• Vinyl Roller Shade (size of your window)
• Inside Mount for Shade

• Painters tape
• Measuring Tape
• Ribbon
• Fabri Tac (Fabric Glue)
• A Ton of Patience

To start, you will want to measure your window to determine the exact length you will pull down your shade. As you want to have the design only on this portion. I think these shades go down 80" or so and I was only going to use 50" max when the shade was pulled down in the evening. So I only marked this section for the design. In addition, I have two lovely curtain panels on each side - so I subtracted a few inches on each side so that the design was in the center of the shade.

Next I began by measuring and putting my painters tape into place. I started by placing ribbon across the bottom. The bottom wasn't very attractive and as a bonus this gave me the first line for the bottom of the pattern.

I wanted a continuous line with the ribbon, I followed the tutorial closely for turning corners. The pattern you tape down will make this very easy. 

After I had all the painters tape in place, I was able to get started. I began at the bottom straight line and then moved right, making my way all around the piece. Just as shown in the tutorial.

Once I got to the top, I'll be honest I wasn't quite sure how this was going to work. The ribbon seemed chunky on the service and the glue seemed like it was to thick for the surface. I could have thrown in the towel but decided to finish before abandoning the project totally. Boy am I glad I didn't. 

It took me two days to finish but I think I could have done this in a few hours if I hadn't had to stop for my Little Man and other family obligations. The most time consuming part is measuring and placing your pattern with the painters tape.  Update: I completed one more for the second window in this room. And it took me a little over an hour and half to complete. Now just two more to make and this room will be complete.

Once done, you place your mounts and hang your shade. Stand back and look at how marvelous your window looks. Isn't she lovely???

Now that I have this complete look, I have purchased three more shades to complete the remaining  windows in our living space. I'll post an update picture as soon as they are all done.

If the shade is letting in way too much light for you, you can get a room darkening shade. Or get a shade in other colors. Keeping in mind the price increases for different colors and light filtering shades.  I just went for a white one since it matched the trim piece on the pelmet box and I didn't need a room darkening shade. I just wanted to cover the window and get privacy for the evenings.

So what you think? Isn't that the perfect addition to my window. Are you inspired to do something similar. Share you design ideas with me. We can all get inspiration from each other. 

NACA..Does it Really Help?? (Series)

Good morning. Pardon my two week break. We suffered a great loss in our family and I needed to direct my attention to healing and being with family. I am sure you all can understand. Also, I apologize in advance for the rather long post this week. But if you are considering NACA or even purchasing your first home and want to know your options - take the time to read this post. This will be the first of a what will probably end up being multiple posts.

When Jay and I started with NACA (Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America), we were just starting to think about purchasing a home. Purchasing a home was definitely in our plan. We had it listed as a goal but didn't have a timeline on when we would pull the trigger and buy a house. I mean our rent was steadily increasing and so many people were telling us that we could buy a house for less than what we paid in rent per month. You know the whole - see your money invested into something that is yours versus giving your money away. It seemed coincidental at the time (mostly God) that my mother was at a meeting for her union where a NACA representative presented and so my mother introduced us to the program. Brilliant!!🙏🏽

So, off we went, along with my Brother, Jay and I attended the NACA Homebuying workshop in August of 2013. We listened to the program highlights, benefits, and the downfalls. The nice thing about the workshop was that they had a prior NACA member speak about their experience with NACA. He was very honest, at least I felt he was, about his experience. He noted some good things, the bad things, and the things that probably were his fault with his overall experience. Ultimately he had ended up with his dream house. Based on everything we had learned, we decided that we would at least attend a one-on-one meeting with a mortgage counselor. I mean what could be the harm in that. 

After the workshop, we began setting up our online profile and scheduling a one-on-one meeting. We were a little bummed to learn that the earliest we could get a meeting was October. I mean after getting us all jazzed up and stuff. 😔 We decided that the outcome of the one-on-one meeting would be the deciding factor of whether or not we would actually go down this path to buy our first home together. I mean the NACA promises of   no closing costs, no down payment, and the locked in PMI  - were all huge selling points to us. Those are all the things that scare a first time home buyer. At least they scared Jay and I. Neither one of us had ever purchased a home. I have made plenty of other purchases, like cars. But those seem so nominal when you talk about purchasing a home. I mean a home comes with a commitment of 15, 20, or even 30 years. Depending on how you structure your mortgage. 😳

Continuing with the preparation for the upcoming 1:1 meeting, we started with the workbook. Oh - I forgot to mention, they hand you a thick workbook at the workshop. Ok so maybe that is a bit of an exaggeration, but it sure felt like it. I remember being kind of overwhelmed by the level of detail for each page. The workbook will become your guide throughout your entire process with NACA. This workbook outlines the entire process from start to finish and includes worksheets. Thus we knew we had to begin doing the first steps of the workbook. Since the costs were minimal to begin this part, we felt it was still not too big of an investment to consider - even if we weren't 100% sure we were going to proceed.

I pride myself on being the CFO of our home. And by that I mean, I pretty much keep us on track with our monthly budget, and financial goals. But even for me, the budgeting exercises with NACA were eye opening. They helped me to take a deeper dive at our daily expenses, our debt load, and to evaluate if our currently monthly budget was actually working for us. I'll be frank - we pretty much had a free life. And by free, I mean all of our bills were paid, we managed our debt load, and we had no worries. We had savings, we had investments into our retirement, and we had security with our jobs. But this budgeting exercise made you think deep into your future and planning for "life bumps". You know those unexpected shake-ups that happen in life. I mean the budget process will make you account for every dime of your pay. And then it will make you look at every expense and break them down into categories of importance. NACA asks you to build your online profile and fill in certain items. You have to pay a membership fee and pay for a credit report. We ended up paying $14 for our credit report since we are married. In addition, we had to upload our most current financial details - including paychecks, W-2s, and other pertinent information. I'll be the first to admit, it did seem a bit intrusive but after learning more about home buying the traditional way - it is all intrusive. 😩 The budget component really intrigued us. This exercise allowed us to take an in-depth look at our finances and determine what we really can afford in a monthly mortgage payment. It was pretty eye opening. It didn't make us run from the program, but I will be honest - we both thought this may or may not work out for us. The other thing with this system is it is pretty antiquated. It's ok from your end, but it is pretty slow on your mortgage counselor's end.

SO, we attended our first meeting with our mortgage counselor in October of 2013. Being excited about the potential of getting qualified and the factors that went into planning and preparing us for a mortgage, we went into the meeting with an open mind. I won't lie - we were seeing stars about being homeowners. We really liked the mortgage counselor she was down to earth and very well spoken. She laid everything out on the line for us. And gave us her perspective on what it would take for us to become homeowners through NACA. Overall, the results weren't bad. She provided a review of our credit report and guided us on what we would need to fix and work on before we would be considered for the qualification process. The list we got wasn't bad but it was going to take work to complete. The positive thing for us, our mortgage counselor was pretty confident we could get approved by the end of the year. We thought that was pretty amazing! Considering, we had heard that it took some people a year or so to even get qualified. I know, pick  your mouth up off the ground. At least, I had to do that when I heard that timetable.

Here's the work we needed to do for qualification:

• Work on resolving any of the negative items on our credit reports - I will be quite honest here. There was stuff we didn't even realize was on ours. A few miscellaneous medical bills and other nonsense from back in our younger days. We even had a few things that didn't even belong to us. 
• Volunteer - You need to have a # number of volunteer hours before you can get qualified. Our goal was to knock these out right away. There are various ways to volunteer.
• Financial documents - we needed to secure tax documents, W2s, paychecks, bank statements from the past 2 years. And continue to submit monthly payroll statements until we were qualified.
• Budget - Continue working on our budget and the agreed budget we made with our counselor.

I mean that list seems cumbersome but even the traditional mortgage route can be daunting, at least from what I have read. This is where you have to be a diligent and organized person. I can't stress enough about keeping your copies and making sure you have a routine schedule for uploading documents to your online profile. And keeping your electronic files organized. We learned very early on that you need to upload everything they request but come to meetings, with your mortgage counselor, with copies of everything. I had a binder that I kept with everything and electronic copies of files so that I could email right to our file.

The last thing we did at our 1:1 meeting was schedule a  follow-up appointment scheduled for mid December. Keeping in mind that we had to have everything listed above completed. Otherwise, we would not get considered for qualification. So here is where the fun begins…stay with me for part 2 of this post. Especially, if you want to learn more about how NACA really works. I promise to share everything we know, learned, and would do over.