New Kitchen Window Valance

I once read a quote about Paris apartments and decorating. it went something like this:

“Decorating your home is a lifelong journey. As soon as you believe you are finished, completely finished decorating it, then you die.” – Author Unknown

Keeping that in mind, I’m not going to die any time soon, as there’s always something else that need to be done. I think I’ve shed the malaise that haunted me in June, as we’ve done a lot more work in the backyard, although sometimes doesn’t look like it. But that’s another post.

Our large casement window in the kitchen has been missing some sort of fabric to soften its ‘squariness’, and tie the room to the rest of the house. I knew what I wanted to do for the actual treatment, it was finding the fabric that I could live with that was the problem.

Our kitchen before

Our kitchen before, with our dear departed Abby, circa 2006

Finally, I found some orange ikat fabric at Ballard Designs (now on sale from $25/yard to $14.99/yard). A tutorial by Effortless Style gave me the inspiration to try my hand at creating my own “box pleat” valance. And here’s the happy outcome. Please excuse the lack of color correction on these images. No matter what I did, I could not get the color edit in Photoshop to do what I wanted.

window with valance

Window with newly created valance

Here’s the valance from another perspective and time of day. This and the 18/10 flatware sets clearance were two things I have managed lately and am very happy with both:

Kitchen Valance, table, pineapple

Valance viewed from another perspective