DIY Faux Roman Shades

I’m back from a great, relaxing spring break!! Our little kid turned SIX! Can’t even believe it. AND, I was so excited to be on the front page of House Beautiful’s website sharing my tips and tricks for buying secondhand.Woohooo!

Ok, gotta keep pluggin’ away…I did a quick show and tell of this project (still in my highlights on Instagram stories) a while back but here I am with the play by play so that you can make your own DIY faux roman shades for some bare windows in your home! *this post contains affiliate links.

We needed a little color and texture on the windows in our living room. We didn't need the privacy so I didn't want to pay for actual shades. Instead I made two faux roman shades for under $40 and I love them! | House Homemade

To spruce up your windows with faux roman shades you’ll need:

3 tension rods per window. They wont be visible so you can buy the cheap kind. These were under $3 a piece from Walmart!

An 84″ curtain panel per window. No grommet or tab top curtains. This is the pair I got but in blush. Tip: try to steer clean of this length otherwise. Hang your curtain rods up near the ceiling and wider than the window for the look of higher ceilings and larger windows. 108″ is then the length you should be looking to buy.

I used my sewing machine to shorten the width. You could cut the curtains and keep the raw edges or use hem tape if you don’t sew.

Really I just played around with it until I got the look I wanted. I put the tension rods in the window spaced a lot closer together than I originally expected.

Then I folded the curtain in half and hung it on the top rod.

Keeping the folded ends together, I pulled the center fold down in between the first and second tension rod making the first pleat.

Then do the same thing again for the final pleat.

I’ve created a diagram of how the fabric and rods are placed in the window casing.

The rods are actually staggered like this. That way the fabric hangs straight down looking more realistic.

Here’s another side view to hopefully help you see how its all up there.

It added just the right amount of color and style to the windows.

Was that clear enough? It was really just trial and error until I got the look I wanted. You can do things like this. Just play around with it. It’s a process!