Reply to Window Treatments Sticker Shock!

Forum Index » Home Improvement, Design, and Decorating

Reply to "Window Treatments Sticker Shock!"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I did some rough calculations for amount of fabric and costs  for pinch pleat drapes for a 65" wide window.  My sewing books say to use at least double the amount of fabric to the window, ideally 2.5, but let's go with double, for 96" drapes.  Add 12" to the 96" for finishing the top and the bottom of each drape.  You will need extra fabric for matching print repeats, but that's specific to the print so I'll ignore that here. Most decorator fabrics are 60" wide, and that's close enough to 65" that I wouldn't add more width to each panel.  Mid-price ~$50/yard. Average price for lining and interlining $10/yard each.
96+12=108=3yards per length
2 curtains/window = 6 yards per window
6 x $50 = $300
6 x $10 = $60
6 x $10 = $60
Total = $450 in material per window

That's not too terribly bad, if you're willing to do the work yourself.  You can also cut the price of the fabric by tracking down sale fabrics.  Joanne Fabrics carries a lot of the mid-price quality materials, and they have frequent sales.

[/quote]

You clearly missed the part where OP pointed out that she is a DOCTOR (ob-gyn to be exact) and has all the money but no time to DIY.

I am always surprised when people who are paid very well for their time balk at paying other people for their time, personally.[/quote]

My friend used to make custom window treatments, and from what she says, people truly used to expect her to work for peanuts, like less than $10/hour.  People have no concept of how much time goes into precisely pattern-matching fabric when making multi-width panels, making perfectly balanced pinch pleats with invisible (or precisely even visible) tacks, or hand hemming to make sure the thread catches the front in just the right place to blend with the fabric.  Now that she’s shown me these details, I cringe when I go into houses where the fabric panels were pattern matched, or they placed the panel seam in the wrong place so it sticks out in front rather than being tucked right next to a pleat, or they didn’t properly secure (or didn’t use) drapery weights so drapes don’t hang nicely.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics