Girl’s Bedroom Makeover: Third Time’s a Charm

They say the third time’s a charm, & it certainly worked for the curtain dilemma I had gotten myself into for the One Room Challenge (although I really wish I could say, “first time’s a charm”).  (Click to catch up on weeks one, two, three, & four.)

When I posted my plan for my eight-year-old daughter’s room, I mentioned possibly using Ikea Vivan curtains.  I checked them out in the store & thought they would be a great choice since the color was very close to the curtains on my mood board & they matched one of the three shades of pink in the pillow fabric I was using, plus they were only $10 a pair.  Then, I got home, ironed them all, & hung them in the room.

Ikea Vivan Pink Curtains

Once hung, the curtains felt completely wrong for the space.  The color was too bold & I just did not like the way they looked.  I decided to leave them up for a while to see if they grew on me, but after a couple of weeks, I decided they needed to go & made another trip to Ikea, this time to buy Ritva curtains to dye pink.  (Totally copied this idea from Little Green Notebook.)  I picked up a bottle of Cherry Red Rit Dye, poured half of it in 12 gallons of water (I used a plastic storage tub) & put my wet curtains in the water.  I let the curtains soak for about seven minutes before checking them, since the Rit website said to let the fabric soak for 10- 20 minutes or until the desired color was achieved.  I thought the 10 minutes was a minimum time, to allow the color to soak in.  After washing & drying them, I realized they were the exact same color as the curtains I didn’t like!  (Can you tell which is which in the photo below?)

Dyed Curtains

I spent the next 24 hours trying to remove the color from the curtains using Rit Color Remover.  I poured a package in seven gallons of water & soaked one curtain panel.  After a few hours the curtain was a very faint shade of pink.  Wanting to save time, I decided to use the washing machine method for the other two.  After an hour long cycle the curtains were unchanged.  I put them in the plastic tub that I had used for the first panel & after soaking for about 24 hours they looked like this:

Color Remover

Looking at these now I probably should have just tried to dye them again, but instead, I went back to Ikea for the third time & bought two more sets of Ritva curtains.  This time, I used the same mixture 4oz. cherry red rit dye with 12 gallons of water.  We basically  dipped the curtains in & immediately pulled them out of the water, rinsed them, & washed them with detergent. 

DIY Pink Dyed Curtains

It’s not a perfect match, but this shade of pink goes with the room much better.

Pink, Green, & Turquoise

I just have one more project to complete before I am finished with Elie’s room!  Please hop on over to Linda’s blog & check out the other makeovers in progress.



Also sharing at Life on Virginia Street as part of DIY Summer School

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