I know lately open concept has been a huge home style trend, and it tends to be for those without clutter. I don't know how home magazines depict individuals homes as being clutter free with the same concept, as half the time just breezing in through my front door creates clutter. In one sense I envy those who can meticulously pull off the open-concept office space, and then reality sunk in when I saw this every day.
Let's just say it wasn't working for me. It certainly made the office look unfinished, and to be frank - dumpy. I decided I wanted to change all that, but I wanted to do it simply and quickly. Watch the transformation!
I normally have such things as instructions on how to make things with precise details. This however was far from precise as I didn't have much to go on.
In addition, not everyone is going to have the same measurements for an open concept shelf of theirs. Or you may want to alter this into something like a simple valance, the options are limitless. Yet I can at least give you all some basics, and show how simple a project this can be for altering a room in 30 minutes.
I got to use my trusted Brother sewing machine, alas he is also my first… I haven't used this machine in almost a year as I've been ashamed at my general shoddy craftsmanship for sewing. (I'm quite terrible…) Today however I felt inspired, and out of options for covering up my poor office cluttered shelving. It turns out my sewing was never bad, it was just that I can't follow instructions to save my life when it comes to crafting. I'm the sort to dive in head first, eyes closed, and start paddling like mad. Turns out, that's exactly what I needed to do with my sewing projects.
I went around the two shorter edges of my measured out fabric, and pinned back just enough fabric so that my pattern was seamlessly even. No matter how hard you try to cut fabric, there is always going to be an imperfection in the flow of the pattern.
I started sewing up my two shorter sides, and tried to keep it as close to the edges as possible.
I then copied on one of the longer edges, what I had done on the shorter edges. I sewed this seam from start to finish, and laid out my semi-finished work. One thing I didn't want to do, was make this only for my office. I also wanted this to be something where down the road, it could become a valance for windows in a secondary home. Therefore I measured a curtain rod's width in my current home, and measured out another seam for the last and final edge. This time it was close to 1 3/4" width.
This is how my pocket came out, and it works great for a future use down the road. In my current situation though I had to get a little crafty! Our current office space is being leased, and therefore I wanted a less permanent means of fixing this over my open-concept shelving. What better way to do that than with velcro.
I used around nine strips of 1 inch wide velcro, and sewed these onto the part with the pocket rod seam. I know it defeats the purpose of the pocket, but down the road I can use a seam ripper to pull out the stitches holding in the velcro tabs. It also allowed me to put this curtain up around the whole shelving unit to make it look flawless, and not a tacky cover up.
After
After
I think it looks nice, and if anything else it helps make the decorative accents above pop. The other nice thing about this project, only 30 minutes, even if you're an amateur, or horrible at sewing! I know not everyone hates open-concept shelving, but sometimes when you see a before and after you start to realize why cabinets have doors to begin with. There's only a rare few who can pull off open-concept shelving, and most of those people to me probably never really live inside their homes. Either that or maybe I'm just too busy to always put things back in the right places. This was my solution, what's yours?