I wanted new drapes for my living room and dining room makeovers however I did not want to spend $40 to $80 per window. I searched in stores and online and really couldn’t find anything I liked for less than $40.00 per window and that was stretching it as the curtains I kept “liking” were closer to $80.00 per window because of the length I wanted the new curtains in. My solution was to make drapes out of sheets and a drop cloth for my own budget saving DIY Smocked Drapes.
I wanted white “drapes” for my living room so I used twin sheets. One sheet per window. After I washed and ironed the sheets I simply cut them in half and hemmed the raw edge. I used drapery hooks I had in the house. I already had two sets of “sheet drapes” that I made a while back and had been using in the master bedroom, I decided to take those two sets of drapes for the living room and eventually make new ones for the bedroom. When I hung them up they looked nice but I wanted them to look more “expensive”. I have always loved smocked drapes and up until now I thought they would be far too difficult to replicate. I couldn’t have been more wrong! Using my friend Jeanette from Country Design Style tutorial I was able to make my own smocked curtains! The few things I did a little different from the tutorial were these: I started the smocking further down on the fabric, I left the cuff from the sheet unsmocked and I hemmed my raw edges. I used a 2″ metal ruler as my spacer between each row. I worked on these drapes while I watched a couple of movies, they didn’t take that long to make. I had 5 drapes made over one weekend.
Originally I was going to use the drop cloth drapes in the living room but when I had the four drapes finished and tried them out and I knew right away that I definitely wanted white drapes and not the natural drop cloth color for the living room, so I grabbed the two sets of white sheet drapes from the bedroom and smocked them after trying those in the living room I knew that was what I wanted so I purchased another sheet for the third window and got to work making that set. I tried one set of the drop cloth drapes in the dining room and loved the natural drop cloth color in that room. I still have a set of smocked drop cloth drapes that I may end up using in the guest room or I might make another set and use them in my future office makeover. You will have to check back to see the new dining room makeover reveal soon (I’m in the process of finishing that room including building a new dining room table). You can see the full living room makeover here.
I have to admit, having made these drapes I doubt I will ever go back to buying store bought curtains. For one the price is a deal breaker for me I refuse to spend $80.00 on drapes for each window. Second I really only love two styles of drapes – Smocked drapes and Grommet drapes. Grommet drapes are just as easy to make as these smocked ones were and you can still use sheets as the basis of the drapes.
I did price out fabric before deciding to go with sheets. Sheets and the drop cloth won due to the price. The cheapest I could find making drapes from fabric was $18.00 per window, not a huge hit to the wallet but I needed to keep my budget as low as possible. I already had the two twin sheet drapes (that were not smocked yet) and a drop cloth in my house so for these two rooms I ended up only spending $11.99 total on new drapes, had I went the fabric route I would have ended up spending $72.00 for four windows (still less expensive then one set of store bought drapes), if I made 8 drapes out of drop cloths and had to purchase the drop cloths for this project it would have cost me $50.00 if I had to purchase sheets for 4 windows it would have cost me $44.00.
Here is the price break down:
Sheet Drapes: Twin sheets at my local Target are $10.99 each – you can make two curtains from one sheet so essentially it’s $10.99 per window for drapes made from sheets. Unfortunately when I went to Target to get a third flat sheet they were out of twin flat sheets in white so I purchased a full size flat white sheet at the cost of $11.99.
Drop Cloth Drapes: I had a drop cloth that I never used, the price for the drop cloth was $25.00. I was able to make 4 drapes out of that so the price for drop cloth drapes is $12.50 per window.
I used a 9×12 Canvas Cotton Drop Cloth similar to the one in the link provided for my smocked drop cloth drapes. If you don’t have a Target store near you, you can get flat white twin sheets on amazon here Utopia Bedding Twin Flat sheet 200 Thread Count 100% Cotton – White
If cost is a big factor for new window treatments for your home consider using sheets or drop cloths and make your own drapes. I love the pattern sheets you can get these days too, you never know you may end up seeing a few patterned sheet drapes in my house one of these days!
*This post may contain affiliate links. I may receive payment or other compensation for the use of affiliate links.
9 comments for “DIY Smocked Drapes for less than $13.00 per window”