You know that moment in The Sound of Music when Maria whips up matching outfits for the von Trapp children out of old curtains? It’s charming, inspiring and completely misleading, as I was soon to find out the hard way.

It all started at the garage sale
Let’s rewind a little. In my last column, I shared a bargain-hunting triumph: two enormous rolls of golden, heavy-duty fabric – around 80 metres of the stuff – that I bought at the Palace Hotel garage sale for the princely sum of CHF 20.

I remember reading somewhere that curtains frame your windows and, in turn, frame the entire room. Maybe so, but not in the case of our lounge curtains. They had never looked quite right to me – a bit drab even. No wonder the Palace fabric whispered to me: curtains.

It seemed like a fun little project. Little did I know that it would snowball into a full-blown operation.

A Pinafore dress and YouTube ambitions
The original plan was to find someone to actually make the curtains – someone talented, experienced, and ideally not me. My sewing history is dubious at best. I once made a pinafore dress at school that was so roomy it could have doubled as maternity wear. Since then, I’ve limited my sewing efforts to anything flat, rectangular and emotionally undemanding. Think tea towels and tablecloths.

But alas, every curtain maker in the area was fully booked. Weeks passed, and as anyone who’s caught the DIY bug knows, once you’ve seen the vision, it’s hard to unsee it. Impatience set in.

So, we decided we’d make the curtains ourselves. It couldn’t be that hard, could it? After all, we had the fabric, a sewing machine and You-Tube training videos. But of course there is so much more to it than that.

First, we had to track down all the other essentials: lining fabric, matching thread, corner weights to stop the curtains flapping about and header tape. That last one proved especially elusive – cue several shop visits, curtain in hand – until we finally found some that worked with our window system. At last, we were ready to begin.

Baby steps
Although our goal was to change the lounge curtains, we decided to start small by making a new set for the hall first. Even though this wasn’t part of the original project, our theory was sound. The hall window was in an out-of-the-way location, so we figured if it all went terribly, nobody would really see them. We also kept the original set just in case our attempt looked more like a horror show than a home improvement.

We were meticulous. We measured, pinned, pressed, and stitched. It all went surprisingly smoothly – right up until the very last step, when the curtain header tape got stuck because we’d misjudged the spacing. Still, we persevered. And you know what? They looked legit.

Our sweatshop weekend
Flush with success, we devoted an entire weekend to the first main set of curtains in the lounge. That went well too. Two weeks later, we felt experienced enough to tackle the really huge set – two curtains, each three metres wide. This was the moment when our curtain production turned into a fullblown sweatshop – quite literally, on what may have been the hottest weekend of the year. But we completed the project and our lounge now has beautiful (if I say so myself!) curtains that look the part and we have the smug satisfaction of knowing we did that.

The hills may be alive with the sound of music, but our lounge is definitely alive with the quiet joy of a job well done. Just be careful what you wish for. Especially if it comes in 80 metres.

ANNA CHARLES