Window Mistreatment Party

18 August 2008


You all know that I love the Nester . Well, today she is having a window mistreatment party. What is a window mistreatment you ask? Here is her definition from her own words:
Mistreatment: (n). covering for a window that is quick, cheap and pretty. may or may not need hardware does not require sewing. a real designer's worst nightmare.
Mistreating: (v). the act of treating a window with dignity and respect without use of the following: hundreds of dollars, sewing, time, crying, divorce, child neglect...
She has the best ideas and takes you through step by step, and these are all borrowed, stolen, lifted from her~thanks, Nester!
Everyone is posting pictures of the mistreatments they have done, so here are mine. *WELCOME* if you are visiting from her site! I'm going to head on over there and check all of them out~I love getting new ideas!


Here is the bathroom~I used about 1/2-3/4 yard of fabric and a spool of ribbon.


The scrunchy part of the fabric is just using safety pins in the back and the ribbon isn't "holding" anything, although it looks like it~it's just hot glued on for decoration on the front part. I didn't use a rod, just trusty old upholstery tacks! Oh, and as she always suggests~you can make your window look so much larger by raising your mistreatment high above the window so it barely blocks any light and gives the image that you have larger windows. I did this on all of mine that I could, and it does make a big difference.
Here is our bedroom~I had originally purchased a pair of cream taffeta window panels for our skinny little windows and then I just used about 1/4 of a yard of fabric for each of the toppers. I ripped the fabric, folded, safety pinned and hot glued it. I'm still deciding if I like the topper scrunched in the middle or if I should just leave it straight~what do you think??
In the kitchen I already had this roman shade from Target up, but I just put a topper on it. (below)
This is when the shade is pulled up~the topper is all you see. I just folded it into the two pleats and glued~I also glued a metal star in the middle there. I still need to find a cute trim for the bottom...


Here is the other window in the kitchen~I had gotten these two PB panels on Ebay, so they are just regular panels on a rod and I just stuck some pip berry garland up there (we have blinds on the window, so I don't close the curtains) with my IAWL sign:


I've already posted the living room one, but basically it's just two panels from Walmart with a brown topper upholstery-tacked with some fringe on the bottom.

So, there you go! It has been so much fun mistreating. I would say it took me a total of 3 hours to finish all of them. The most time consuming part for me? Choosing the fabrics and trim! Arghhhhhh! Once I finally make up my mind on that, Nester has made the rest very, very easy. Thanks for stopping by!

43 comments

  1. I love them! They all look so pretty, especially the one with the brown bows! Great job!

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  2. Unbelievable! These are gorgeous, and seriously...only 3 hours? I need to get going! I really like the scrunched up middle on your bedroom one. Don't change it, it adds so much character. And question...in your bathroom you didn't use a rod? Did you just take up the fabric right onto the wall? So glad I found your site...I will enjoy browsing lots more.

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  3. Wow! Your bedroom is absolutely gorgeous! It inspires me to get to work on mine. I was attracted to your blog name when I saw the name Hyrum. I just delivered twins who I named Joseph and Hyrum! LOVE the name! I'm sure you do, too! Great work!

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  4. WOW...you have done fabulous mistreatments and I love your bedroom. I am so fabrically (new word) challenged I may never get any done :(

    Yours are perfect!!

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  5. Gorgeous mistreatments! I think I especially like the one in the bathroom... the color is so pretty! Thanks for stopping by my blog. :o)

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  6. Wow, great job Melissa, I love your window mistreatments, the colors, the fabrics. You have done such a great job. wow! I will be back when I can look at your entire blog. Great ideas.
    Thanks, Debbie

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  7. LOVE LOVE LOVE all of them. Great colors- especially the blue and brown-thats what our master bedroom is. you did an amazing job!

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  8. Oh wow, those look fantastic! I can't pick a favorite, they're all fabulous. :)

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  9. Melissa...those look amazing! I never know what to do with my windows...so I don't do anything. What a great idea...affordable and fast...I'm really going to try this:) Thanks for the inspiration!

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  10. Oh yeah!!

    These are some wonderful mistreatments my dear! Thanks so much for sharing them with us!!!

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  11. Wow, beautiful fabrics. I love that star on the kitchen mistreatment. I also like that sign above the window. I'm off to check out the rest of your blog.

    Brandee :-)

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  12. Thanks so much everyone!
    Ok, disclaimer on the 3 hours~that did not include the hanging of the rods. My husband helped with those. They seem to take forever to get straight! That was just for the fun fabric parts between watching Olympic swimming events at night for the last week! And the living room one was done months ago.
    In the bathroom, yup, the fabric is just upholstery tacked right to the wall. Serious mistreatment!
    Thanks for all of the comments!

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  13. Wow you've made some great mistreatments for your home. I really love the creativity of the window topper for your kitchen. Great job.

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  14. I really like these, especially the tied up toppers. Very nice and you're giving me some food for thought as I'm not very happy with my mistreatments.

    ~ Sarah

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  15. Good job! Beautiful!

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  16. Hi, Melissa, thanks for stopping by from the party! I enjoyed seeing all of the ones that you've done too. Hope you'll come back & visit me again.

    Rhoda

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  17. Beautiful mistreatments! They all look wonderful!!!

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  18. WOW, you did an amazing job!!!

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  19. Those are GREAT. Beautiful job.

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  20. Love all of these!

    My most fav thing...the pic of the temple that I spied above your bed.
    I used to have one above my closet door when I lived at home.

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  21. Looks great! Nice choice of fabric.

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  22. Yep, you can tell you've been hanging around Nester's blog. Nice work!

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  23. So I was looking at other "window mistreatments" and yours are definitely the best. I LOVE them and wish you could come do mine - Hyrum wouldn't mind if you just left the kids and flew on up! :) Love ya!

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  24. That's me by the way that left the last comment, I just wanted to see what it would do if I didn't use my blogger name.

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  25. They are all so beautiful! I love the little star on the kitchen topper.
    -Nancy

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  26. Beautiful pictures!! I love your mistreatments!!! GREAT JOB!!! :)

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  27. These are all beautiful, but my favorite are the ones in the bathroom! I love the fabric.

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  28. The star of Texas...Oh how fitting. What great ideas for valances. I'm digging the valances and panels in your bedroom.
    ~Connie

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  29. Melissa, What a great blog you have! This is my first time visiting. Great mistreatments! I will come back to visit, and thanks for visiting me today, too!
    -Carrie

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  30. Melissa, You need to upload your bedroom pictures to rate my space. I love it. It looks so peaceful and inviting! Good job!

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  31. That black and tan striped fabric... I just bought that today... though I am not sure it will go well with our family room. I have an adversion to patterns... even stripes...shhh!
    Anyhow, I love all your mistreatments... I am up for round two now! Thanks for the lookies... greta inspiration!

    Aja
    SE Kansas

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  32. I love the garland on the windows. Very nice! All of them are lovely! Wanna come do mine =)

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  33. I just bought fabric to do something similar in my second bath. I was going to search all through Nester's site to find her example, but now I have yours! Great tip to pinch the fabric up and pin it from behind before adding the ribbon.

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  34. I'm inspired too. (Jamie sent me the link!)

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  35. Wow, your like the master mistreater. All your your mistreatments are beautiful, and your like the cutest pregnant mom ever. Your house does not look like a 1970's house at all, you have done a great job decorating it. We lived in Logan too, like 3 years ago, oh the good old college days:) Sometimes I really do miss them.

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  36. Well Melissa, Aren't you the POPULAR one! LOL! I don't know If I need to even give you my input, because I AGREE with EVERYONE!! I've been wanting to make my own "mistreatments" (what does that word mean exactly??) I'm totally out of the loop when it comes to do it yourself projects and all that. But I've been inspired too!

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  37. Ok, I'm an idiot.... I just read what a mistreatment was DUH!! I guess I just got too excited about the pictures, I forgot to COMPLETELY read the blog. :)

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  38. Well you certainly put my windows to shame. I thought we were talking "mis-treatment" here! Great job - I'll have to take another look at mine :-(

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  39. Great Job! I especially like the one is the bathroom!

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  40. Beautiful job! I love the garland, too. I've been looking for something to decorate my plain rods, and that just might be it. Thanks for sharing your great ideas!

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  41. Hey, I have to admit that I have been blog stalking you since you moved. But I wan't to leave a comment and tell you how much I love how you have decorated your new home. And thank you for introducing me to the nesting place. We miss your cute little family around here.

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  42. Melissa~I hope you don't mind I jumped on your page from Kristine's blog. I love looking at your blog! You are so talented and such cute, fun mom. But I wouldn't expect anything else from such a sweet person. Glad things are going well for you. Hopefully you don't think I'm stalking you :) Take care, lori jeppson

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  43. Hi my friend - I'm moving to a new house and thinking you need to come and help me decorate O Talented One!

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