A Felt Curtain.

A uh excuse me?

Yeah, a felt curtain.

Man, where does this stuff come from?, you may dubiously eyeball.  Ummm, dunno?  I have quite a brain.

I must admit first I was a little loathe to make this.  Why?, you ask.  Well, because I love felt.  I am strangely fascinated by felt and I can't explain it.  So to use up a chunk of my coveted stash, well, that was gut-wrenching.

Messy portion of my shockingly-not-vast felt collection.

But where the heck did this come from?, you ponder with mild exasperation.

Well.  The laundry room.

?????

This little itty bitty tiny little room irritates the snot out of me due to its inability to be functional, efficiently laid out, and aesthetically pleasing.  I already wrote one whiny post about it.  I actually even called Abt to find out how much it would cost to have them unstack the washer/dryer.  $150.  Yikes that's steep.

I mean, in the grand scheme of things, a much more sale-able and attractive laundry room puts $150 in the perspective of pennies but up front?, yeah ouch, harder to swallow.

I um, did look at it, the whole stacking kit thingie of course as I'm wont to do as a DIY'er who believes in well, crazy things see.  And seriously, it comes apart in a flash.  The hard part would be getting the dryer down.  Especially because a.) guarantee Mike will not-politely refuse, b.) it's likely heavy and certainly unruly, and c.) Mike won't do it.  Did I mention Mike will say no?

See?  All it is is two screws and the stacking kit thing releases.  And where my DIY hackles go up: it's plainly easy but I am clearly not capable of moving a dryer by myself.  Frustration then abounds.

Sigh.

So we'll see.

But I was in the laundry room yesterday, all frustrated and rearranging the entire room in my head for the umpteenth time, wishing we had some kind of flat dry area, ya know for sweaters and such one can't hang or toss in the dryer.

Then I thought, well, that door to the utility closet would have to come off.

Sounds extreme but it's because we can't keep the door shut.  And I have no "before" photo for you.  Oops.

When our inspector waltzed through, he pointed out there was no air movement for the furnace and water heater with a closed solid door.  So the flipper, in his infinite wisdom (ahem, cough, lack thereof) told some lackey to cut a hole in the door, pop vent covers on.

It's still not enough air movement if the door is closed, as we've discovered.  So the door has to stay open.  We catch sight the yicky creepy gross dirty utility closet innards and spiders the size of my head all the time.

Well.....what if I remove the door and put a curtain up?  Ehhhhh....Not my favorite idea in the world.  Curtains in doorways, not a look I like.  Well.  Hm.  Seems the only option though.  Lemme see what I have laying around.

So I dug through my stash of fabric and only had a drop cloth large enough.  I opted to hold onto that for some future use and opened up my Box o' Felt after contemplating the idea of stitching smaller remnants of fabric together.

Sunshine poured out of the felt box upon opening....ok, yeah, too much?  Seriously, I have a freaky abnormal fixation and attachment to felt.  See?  See why?  It's so cool.  My poor nephews have endured many a birthday/holiday gift crafted of felt.  I can't help myself.  As I break down in tears.  I love felt!!  Send help!!

Anywhoooo, that's where the idea came from.

What did I use?

• several pieces of 9x12 felt*
• larger felt remnants
• cafe rod, aka tension rod*

Cost?  Free to me as I had everything.  I imagine if I had to buy everything outright, it'd surely be less than say $10.  Pretty cheap for a custom curtain, yeah?

I began by seeing what I had, stretching out a tape measure to eighty inches on the floor, then laying out pieces.  Picking pieces up, rearranging, laying pieces down until I came up with a layout that clicked.

Final layout.  Red halves got trimmed to fit.

Dashed upstairs to my super fab sewing machine that I love dearly, flipped it to a zig zag stitch on the widest, threw in some white quilting thread,* butted the pieces of felt together and stitched away.

That zig-a-zag-'em stitch!

All told, it took a smidge over two hours to figure the layout and stitch it together.  Well, after I goofed and had to rip out a big long seam then restitch.  Oy.

Was it all perfect and fabulous and rock my world?  Eh, nope.  I'm not sure why things didn't line up.

Doh!!  Why?!?!?!?!?!?

Therefore it hung way funny.  Looking at it, yeah, I frustratedly thought huh, do I really want to take it apart and fix it?  Yes.  But do I really?  No.

Wanky janky.  Yay fun!  Boo.  

Did I?  Yes.  Because I wanted it to be right.  Or close to it.  Sigh.  But I meh do not like redoing things and seam ripping!  Insert foot stomping and arms flailing and whining and pouting.

So after an hour of ripping seams...heh yay (I timed it yes), I made sure to be more careful and get things lined up properly.  Turns out my long dark gray segment is too long.  Ah well, so it is, I am done.  Close enough, good enough.

Hey hey!  Close enough...

But I think the general idea is sound and a good one.  If one took more time and measured and were more careful than I had been, it'd probably turn out funky, freaky awesome, and cool.

It does do its job.  It's free to me.  Yeah it's a little whack-a-doo, a little weird, and definitely bright but again, the idea is there.  I still really dislike curtains in doorways which is surely what I'm reacting to most.

The curtain in its final resting place.

Kids rooms?  Totes dude, banner winner winner chicken dinner concept.  Toned and curated using wool felt and lined?, yeah it could be a stylish scheme for grown ups.  Or colorful patchwork-y made up of all 9x12's, still a fun idea.

Taking the door off, as usual and as always, made an instant huge difference of course.  I have nowhere to put the door at the moment so it's stashed behind the other door.  Heh, door death toll in this house?  Three.  I do plan to put it back on when we sell.  Or maybe a louvered bi-fold instead, we'll see.

All that copious vast area!  Cough.  Hey, thankful to have a laundry room really.

So now it's time to figure out a wall mounted fold up flat drying station thingie-ma-bob.

Unless we get that dryer down.....ahem.

But all righty ladies and gents, hang onto your hats.  Over the weekend Mike made mention #3, aka Dooms Day Mention, of my unfinished projects so the pace is about to pick up.

(See what I ended up replacing the curtain with by clicking here!)

*The felt, cafe/tension rod, and quilting thread are all Amazon affiliate links.  Mwah, thanks!  Please see the "boring stuff" tab for more info.