FAUX ROMAN SHADES

I had a client who wanted roman shades, but didn't want to pay for roman shades.  So I came up with this alternative.

There were three windows in the room.  Instead of making them identical, I decided that switching up the fabrics would be cuter.  I based the idea on signal flags.

The problem with these shades is they have to be  hand-rolled up to whichever buttonhole level you want them to hang at.  It was kind of a pain.  They look cute but function-wise, not so good.  

I did the ones in the sister's room a little differently, but the same idea.  Again, the hand-rolling proved to be a big, fat pain, and not something you want to do on a daily basis.

Closer view

(Notice the snow outside the window.  This was a client in Chicago.)

Another client who also wanted romans and thought they were too expensive.  The bad thing about this one was it's a baby's room and the mother wanted to open and close this shade every time the baby napped.  Talk about a pain!

This one was basically going to stay up, so not as much of a hassle.  She had the wall painted to match the shade.

This shot and the one above were folded-up rather than rolled.  Again, rather a pain to deal with on a daily basis.  When people are determined to save money, though, using common sense and trying to explain the challenges of the faux shades, doesn't usually work.

On this last shade, the ties were sewn into place.  The shade was never meant to be closed all the way.  The floral piece is not longer enough to actually cover the window, so I came up with this idea.  The window is a french window and when the client wanted more light, she just opened it up.  Plus the view is of the neighbor's brick wall, so blocking most of that view was really what she was trying to accomplish.