Little Black Dress

Fashion gurus are always telling us that a "little black dress" is a staple in any wardrobe.  Since my kitchen window has been a source of frustration for quite some time, it got me to thinking maybe that goes for windows too.  Please try not to pay too close attention to the next bad iPhone photo and the dirty dishes, but I forgot to take a true before picture and this was all I could come up with!

In all reality, this window just needs to be completely replaced, but that's just not in the budget.  You can see part of the half-round window above that has always just driven me crazy.  Why do builders put these crazy difficult windows in?

I had gotten a quote for a custom Roman shade to cover the window, but at $2000, it wasn't in the budget either.  Who spends that on a blind?  After quite a bit of searching for an alternative, I found this blind at West Elm.  It was a deal at $79.00!

It fit the space perfectly and helped hide the half-round (at least when the sun isn't shining through).  It all was still a little bland for me with the ivory cabinets and brown walls (the walls are next on my to-do list!) so I pulled the shade down and tried to work a little budget friendly magic.  I ordered 7 yards of 2 1/4" grosgrain ribbon from MJ Trim for $1.98/yd and set to work at soon as it came in the mail.

I extended the shade all the way out and started trimming the edges with the ribbon using my favorite adhesive for fabric.

I put the trim down both sides first trying to keep it as straight as possible and eyeballing equal distance from the edge on both sides.

Nest I did the bottom and top and just folded the ribbon over at both ends a bit to cover the cut edge.

While I waited for that to dry I broke out some black paint I had leftover from painting my front door and painted the trim around the window.

After the shade was dry I hung it back up and, voila!

I think those fashion gurus might just be right; everybody (or everything) could use a little black dress.