paint, paint, paint, oh my!

I found the most delightful paint color

but it doesn't have a name 

and I'll never be able to get this same exact color again

so I bought a gallon for $7 on the mess up rack at Home Depot.

Best $7 I ever spent on paint!

It's a beautiful dark blue gray...At first I thought it may be too blue.  Once I started painting, I thought it was too dark. After two coats and the right lighting, I am very pleased!

I went a little crazy and painted more than a few pieces of furniture. All were things that I wanted to paint, but hadn't found the right color for.  And I was getting bored while Elliott was laying floor and there wasn't much for me to do...

 The desk was my dad's. I think he used it in college.  It was a sage green color. I didn't remember the desk until Ashley painted it white and took it back to LSU for it's second life...a few years later, I layered on another coat of white paint and used it in college as well. I've had it ever since....just a good solid wood desk.

 ...given a new life!

I also had a shelf that was black so I painted it to match!

Then there is this old nightstand. Originally it was plain wood and pretty ugly so I painted it a light blue but gave it an upgrade with the new paint color!

and then, the curtains!

 I hate that the lighting is so bad in these pictures!

I don't sew, so painted curtains sounded like my kind of job!  I bought the grommet canvas curtains from IKEA awhile back and wasn't exactly sure what I was going to do with them until I saw some chevron painted curtains on Pinterest! I do love chevron right now and after reading the tutorial it sounded easy enough. And it was!

I saw these first from this blog:
http://kfddesigns.blogspot.com/2010/10/chevron-curtain-diy.html

and then these:

from this blog:
http://thehuntedinterior.blogspot.com/2011/12/hot-trend-of-2011-chevron.html

I followed the directions from the first blog but modified the dimensions because I wanted more chevrons. The first and probably only time I'll ever iron curtains:

I folded them in half and ironed that seam and then folded them in half again to get a line where my points would be. The tutorial said to measure and tape it but my lines were crisp enough so I skipped that step.

Since I wanted more "chevron" I measured mine 12 inches apart (the others were 20.5 inches and only had 2 colored portions). I started from the top so the tip of my points are the ends and center of the panel and the dips are in the 2 other creases. It sounds confusing but really is easy.
Then the fun part...painting

I originally thought I wanted to do navy since that seems to be my favorite color but after finding this great color I decided to give it a shot!

When you tape, you have to remember which parts will be painted and account for that by either taping "inside" or "outside' the lines. It makes the unpainted part look smaller but the tape I used was 1.5 inches and once you pull it off, it's even!

The hard part was making sure I measured the second panel exactly like the first so they will be symmetrical! After letting them dry overnight I hung them and was able to see a few spots I missed (even with 2 coats!) but touch up was easy!
Some tutorials mentioned a fabric medium you can add to paint to make it washable, but as mentioned before, I don't really see myself washing and ironing curtains so I wasn't worried about that. The panels hang very nicely and aren't too stiff which is something I also thought about with painted fabric. I made sure my tape was very tight on the fabric to prevent the paint from seeping through which seemed to work well.

So, there you have it, painted chevron curtains...I hope this trend lasts awhile!
So glad I found such a great color and was able to update a few pieces, too!