Copy my Dramatic Silk Curtains: Sew easy!

By popular demand from HGTV Rate My Space members, here's a short "how-to" video on how I made my dupioni silk dining room curtains, as featured in HGTV Ideas Magazine's Summer 2008 issue. (Click the little widescreen box for full screen HD)

Sew you can do it!

If you can sew a basic lined curtain with a plain, flat heading, you can do this! There are NO PLEATS and the hardware is easy to install - just 4 drywall anchors and 4 screws per drapery holdback and you're done.

You could also customize ready-made silk curtain panels if you don't need a crazy long length (135") like I did. I love the casual elegance of these curtains. As you'll see in the "before" view, they took my already-nice dining room to a whole new level.

Sew fun...sew economical!

If you're new to home sewing, you don't need fancy equipment to make curtains - or any other fabric home furnishings, for that matter. I still use my built-like-a-tank used Elna Zig-Zag sewing machine (circa 1974) and basic techniques from the 1986 classic,  Vogue Sewing for the Home (still available for $10 from AntiQbook.com). I sold my serger years ago on eBay because I prefer to sew blind hems by hand...the way Mom taught me.

Sew what are you waiting for?

Sewing for your own home is one of the most rewarding do-it-yourself projects you can tackle. I've saved thousands of dollars over 20 years, and 3 homes, making my own window treatments, bedding, pillows, slipcovers, decorative pillows, upholstered headboards. 

Please post your questions and I'll try to answer them. Happy sewing!

Shopping info: Please note that exact gold silk and the holdbacks I used have been discontinued, but you can find many similar substitutes out there.

Updated Rate My Space website: I'm disappointed!

The new, improved Rate My Space website is visually appealing and HGTV seems to have delivered on the promised bandwidth increase (speed, for you non-geeks). But much of the functionality has been lost, from my perspective as someone who liked to track the "horserace," the movement of spaces...Most viewed today, this week, this month are all gone.

But hey, now I've got a nice new profile page to add to my growing social-networking clutter on the web.

A major loss on RMS is the search function. You could search RMS itself on usernames or any keywords of interest, like all those descriptive tags you spent time and brainpower carefully inserting into your spaces. Say you wanted to get ideas for Christmas decorating. Search on "Christmas" and you'd get all the Christmas spaces that you could not find simply by looking at the room categories. I could tell friends how to find my spaces easily - search "marykay," my username.

On the new site, search encompasses all of HGTV.com and appears to not include RMS. I searched on my last name, Ulsamer, a keyword in most of my spaces. It returns nothing but the suggestion to check my spelling, try more general words, try different words that mean the same thing, or...contact us. Right!

All that and an annoying drop-down "Inside Crafts" pop-up from accidentally grazing the fancy flash menubar above. At this point, you're totally out of RMS and in the larger domain of HGTV.com. So you look for a link back to RMS...if you aren't too frustrated...

So it looks like the only way anyone's going to find me is on Rate My Space or Oprah reruns.

More later. I'm not done complaining!

Christmas decorating made easy...sort of

Christmas Decorating Marathon, Day 1...I'm taking a break before finishing up the kitchen. I finished the dining room this morning after a thorough cleaning. My grandmother's 90+ year old Nativity is on my kitchen hutch, always my first decoration to go up.

The 8 tiny pre-lit Christmas trees are everyone's favorite and they make me smile. I added them last year in heights from 24-36" on top of my cabinets and pantry (4 ft. clear to 12 ft. ceiling). From Walmart, Michael's, Target; none more than $10. El-cheapo glass balls from Walmart.

I can't believe how many times I've climbed down that 8 foot ladder today to check my photos from last year on RMS (Faux, Faux, Faux! Merry Christmas!). What a PLUS to have online photos to refer back to this year. Especially when I get to the mantel and foyer tomorrow.

The tip that's made decorating relatively painless this year is the organization I did in January in my upstairs storage room, above, inspired by an RMS user who had actually posted similar photos. 

Got the clear plastic boxes on sale at Home Depot and packed everything by room or area and labeled each box. This is about a third of my Christmas stuff on the 2 upper shelves (10 ft. ceiling) I cover my florals with clear plastic trash bags. As I empty each box downstairs, I take it back upstairs 'til I un-decorate. I'm glad I remembered to take the storage photos to show me where it all fits again in January!

One year ago today...

Just looked at the date on my computer and realized that exactly a year ago today, Thanksgiving weekend, I was surfing the web, minding my own business, and discovered HGTV's Rate My Space website.

I wrote about that day in one of my first posts, "Rate My Space - How I got hooked." That day, I uploaded photos of my kitchen and dining room. Little did I know where THAT would lead...to a TV appearance, photo shoot, blog, and so many new online friends! Not to mention all the wonderful design inspiration from so many talented RMS members.

I discovered a new site on Saturday,  FlyLady.net, that I hope will help me get myself and my house organized after a 3-week bout of post-vacation laziness (I'm a mess). 

This is how bad it was: I had company coming in 5 hours and hadn't cleaned my house in 6 weeks, IOW, pre-vacation. So, LOL, I went online and googled "fastest way to clean house." That's what led me to this cool site. 

With FlyLady's help, I hope to get my house clean, Christmas decorations up, and the blog updated...finally. Then I'll have more time to enjoy RMS browsing and blog surfing. Who knows? It may even help my golf game!

the next designstar?

I haven't been blogging or browsing Rate My Space lately due to a lot of commitments, meetings and vacation prep, but I'm so glad I checked out the main page this morning.

Tom (aka "naddhee"), a late 20-something grad student, has posted his first apartment in L.A. and it is amazing. And it's the top ranked and most viewed space.

I'll just show a couple photos here because it's well worth your time to go and view all 12 photos and read each description. What Tom has done with $1,200 at IKEA, West Elm and Home Depot - and boundless creativity - will blow you away.

Tom says, "I also made all the weird art pieces on the walls (~$30 each) from styrofoam and snap-off blade knife." I would say weird is a poor choice of words!

Enjoy Tom's space here and don't forget to rate it!

welcome changes coming to rate my space

Great news! Thanks to reader "mdenton" for sending me the link to this post on HGTV's RMS feedback forum. I rarely visit RMS these days, unless I'm up real late or real early when the servers are running faster.

Here's the post, "Upcoming Changes," from "HGTV Matt":




Hello Everyone,

Rate My Space (RMS) has become a fantastic online community for HGTV, and we are working to make it even better. We are working hard behind the scenes to make some really great improvements. Check back in the coming weeks as we reveal in detail the great new features we have in store for users. Here are a couple of things I can reveal right now!

1. Site Speed - Do you get frustrated when browsing from photo to photo? Even to the point of just giving up? We hear you loud and clear. We have been working diligently under the hood, and I can tell you the new version will be fast fast fast.

2. Improved Layouts - We are tidying up our templates and making the site more user friendly. From uploading and editing spaces to simply browsing through photos, several enhancements are in the works to make the site easier to use.

3. Useful Tools - Need to rotate a photo that you've uploaded? What about re-arrange the order of your uploads? Or quickly add captions to your photos? Or easily upload additional photos or videos? It's all coming. I'm especially excited about our upcoming "My Favorites" feature. Have you ever liked a particular space, and not been able to find it again? Soon you will be able to add it to "My Favorites," a simple place to keep track of all the rooms that inspire you.

4. More about YOU! - We have some amazing personalities across the country uploading to Rate My Space (as well as Share My Craft and Rate My Quilt) every single day. Unfortunately there is no way for these users to really express themselves besides a catchy username. To rectify that, we are working on an exciting way for HGTV members to express themselves. It's called "My Profile" and now members can upload a small photo of themselves, include a bio, show off their personal portfolio of uploads, and save their favorite spaces. We are really excited to be rolling out this feature in the next few months.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Let us know your ideas for the future of Rate My Space...

This message has been edited. Last edited by: HGTV Matt, Sep 15, 2008 02:59 PM

angelo renovates his own kitchen!

The Los Angeles Times has a great feature on Angelo Surmelis' new kitchen renovation. Angelo (above with his adorable pup, Baxter) is the popular host of HGTV's Rate My Space TV show.

Click here to enjoy the whole article with photos! More info on Kathy's Remodeling Blog courtesy of author Kathy Price-Robinson, the award winning writer who interviewed Angelo.

Photo: L.A. Times

take great photos for rate my space, part 1

Digital photography has made it almost easy for amateurs (like us) to take great photos. And we don't need a lot of fancy equipment to publish on sites like HGTV's Rate My Space. I haven't had formal training, but I've always enjoyed taking pictures of interiors - for my websites and for realtor friends - with my 6 year old Sony.

So it was a real treat for me to watch a professional photo shoot in my own home, for HGTV Ideas Magazine. Now I pay more attention to the photography on Rate My Space, the good, the bad, and especially the great spaces that could look so much better.

The New York Institute of Photography's website features a great article on "How to Photograph Interiors." It details 3 guidelines for better interior shots. I'll summarize them here, but it's worth your time to read the whole NYIP article.

Guideline 1 -Make certain that you select the best possible portion of the room to photograph. Show the best view of your subject.

Guideline 3 - Remove Distractions.

Distraction 1: Too much stuff. After you take your photo, look at it as others do and then edit, edit, edit.

Distraction 2: Vertical and horizontal lines that are crooked. The sense of tilt can be very distracting. See NYIP photo at right.

Distraction 3: Bad Interior Lighting. Don't use your flash. It will make the room look strange. Instead, turn off your flash.

Here are two examples of beautiful RMS kitchens. Both have wonderful layouts, cabinetry and accessories. The major difference, IMHO, is the quality of the photography. 

Kitchen One is on its way to being the #1 MOST VIEWED space ever on HGTV's Rate My Space website. Jfell took the photos herself and they look professional, but not "staged."

Compare with Kitchen Two below:

1st photo - note the angles, lighting, view, stuff

Photo 6 - a better view to show first?

Kitchen Two has great bones. Though reposts of RMS spaces with few changes are generally not well received, I would love to see better photos of the kitchen above. I think it would zoom past its current 3.9 (excellent) rating and its 32,900 views.

In part 2, I'll talk about NYIP's Guideline 2, which asks "How can I give emphasis to my subject?"

me on hgtv, 5:30 pm today

If you missed it, here's your chance to see a great episode's of HGTV's Rate My Space TV show: the "Lackluster Kitchen" makeover (HGTV, 5:30 PM Eastern). I was honored to have my kitchen chosen as an inspiration space by homeowner Andy.

Before, Andy's kitchen looked nothing like the rest of his sleek mid-century modern home.

Photos: HGTV

The makeover was dramatic, especially when you see the new open views into Andy's living and dining spaces. The pine hutch in my kitchen was the inspiration for the choice of a beautiful  Chinese red lacquer cabinet to serve as a pantry and buffet.

Here's the web page where you can comment and rate designer Angelo Surmelis' makeover.

Interesting tidbit from Angelo's blog, Design Geek, iTunes has $1.99 downloads of all Rate My Space episodes here. This episode is missing from HGTV's watch-on-line-for-free episode page.

Rate My Space website etiquette

Thanks to Laurie, aka "Bargainhunr" on Rate My Space, for her wonderful, thought-provoking post and for allowing me to repost it here...

• Does every space posted on RMS require that we criticize it (constructively or otherwise)? If someone doesn't ask for advice or help, I believe they are enjoying their space the way it is. If the homeowner is satisfied, why do we need to give them advice? Some have said that if you post your space, you should expect constructive criticism. I don't believe we are looking for criticism of any type. Suggestions and ideas are usually appreciated though.

• Many times, RMS-ers demand that someone change something in their home. My understanding is that good decorators attempt to give their clients what the client wants. They do not try to impose their taste on a client. I appreciate seeing a lot of different styles of decor, and I feel I can learn from seeing a lot of styles. I would not expect or want to see only one style of decor on RMS or any place else.

• I agree that RMS is a place where people can ask for help, but some comments do not seem to be posted to help someone, but to hurt someone. I knew when I posted my home that my decor style was in the minority, but I did not ask for help. I do not object to someone making a suggestion and have taken some suggestions and tried them in my home.

• The title of this site is "Rate My Space." It is not "See if you can find something to criticize in my space." I have seen comments that led me to believe that a person has searched for something bad to say about a posting. A need to do that does not speak well of the person who is doing it. Those of you who are worried about posting your homes, realize that you will need to ignore some comments from people who are obviously angry people, using this site to feel good about themselves.
  
  
• There has been discussion about RMS not being a place to make friends. If you are annoyed by friendships on RMS, you don't need to read the comments left on the spaces. We may also need to consider that, because of a disability, there may be some posters who find it easier to type in all caps.

• It is so sad when someone deletes their space because of comments that are not kind. Our homes are such a personal thing, and we are all sensitive about them. Since we all have an interest in decorating, we might ask ourselves how our comment would make us feel if it were left in a posting of our home.
  
  Thank you to those who read all of this. I look forward to seeing your homes.
  - Laurie, "Bargainhunr"

Please visit Laurie's post "RMS PARTY-ALL RMSers INVITED" on Rate My Space and read the thoughtful comments there. Also, if you encounter RMS newbies, send them there or here for "orientation!"

Appreciate your comments...

My kitchen's on hgtv's home page!

HURRICANE UPDATE... I'm midway between Daytona Beach and St. Augustine, and it's bright and sunny here! Thank you all for your expressions of concern. So far, so good!

Thanks HGTV.com! And thanks to PattyLH and Jeanette (AKA jfell, of the current top-rated space on RMS) for letting me know! You have to click the thumbnail "small kitchen" to bring up the larger "Help for Small Kitchens" image. Cool.

I still maintain that it's a nice kitchen, but not that nice. In fact my "small but efficient kitchen" is a mess right now, but Hurricane Fay is my excuse. The rain hasn't started yet, but it's coming tomorrow.

I love watching the Weather Channel reporters get blown around during hurricanes. A sure predictor that you'll be safe is if Jim Cantore shows up in your town. He's never in a really dangerous area (they send the women there). He's in Naples now, so they may be breathing a sigh of relief. I'm not.

UPDATE: Wed. AM, kitchen has been replaced by a beautiful infinity pool. It sure was an honor to be featured for 2 days and get a lot of really nice comments from people!

Rate My Space website "don'ts!"

A comment by Nikkicrumpet on my last post, inspired this one.

What are some people thinking when they post their photos? Attention to detail is such an important element of good design! Besides surfing HGTV's Rate My Space, I love to look for bloopers in design magazine photos. And I'm fascinated by the home organization shows' "befores."

Here are two recent bathroom photos from RMS that I just don't get!

Above, a nice remodel, but the open seat
and toilet brush ruin it for me.

Above, evidence of some nice updating, but hard to see it through all the clutter. And there's the toilet brush again. Click the photo for a better look at this one.

Get your photos noticed on Rate My Space, part 2

The Rate My Space website, apart from the design content, is fun to watch, like the dynamics of polling or sports predictions. I like to to guess, early on, which spaces will become big hits. Sometimes I'm right and sometimes I'm wrong. But it's fun to try, like guessing which house will be picked on Househunters.

Here are some of my non-scientific observations...

Never...I mean NOT EVER....never upload your photos in the middle of the night! You want your space to get maximum exposure when it debuts. And that means LOTS of views right away. You want at least 500+ views in the first hour.

If you upload at midnight EST (9 PM in CA) you have fewer viewers online to see your space. Then at 10 AM when more people are online, your space says "Uploaded 10 hours ago, 200 views" (if you're lucky). That doesn't scream out "this is a HOT space, you better view it!"

If you're in CA and you upload at midnight, the thousands of viewers in eastern states have been asleep for about 4 hours and hopefully will be for 4 more. Get the idea?

Upload anytime on Saturday or Sunday afternoon - If you look at the views on the "Most Viewed" spaces on the front page, they seem to skyrocket on Saturday, and on Sunday too. Makes sense, because people are off work. Saturday, I don't think you can go wrong.

Start your own space off with a few nice 5 star ratings! Don't be modest. Get some friends and family to rate it right away. I think some raters are influenced by the existing rating. Kind of like how many voters are influenced by the polls, ie. they care about what others are thinking first. The herd mentality, IOW.

THIS is really tip #1! Select your best lead photo (and thumbnail) and... SURPRISE! It just may not be the most common head-on view of your space!

Example: I took this photo of my kitchen from the door into the garage. It's much more visually dramatic than the normal view from the great room. This photo shows off the high ceiling, tall range hood, and the pine hutch. And, as in decorating, those angles create interest.

But this was NOT my first photo. The first one lasted 15 minutes after I uploaded , until I realized that no one was looking at my space. I replaced it with this view, and by the end of the day, as I recall, my "Small but Efficient Kitchen" space was on the front page, where it stayed for about a month!

In part 3, I'll talk about taking good digital photos and those tiny thumbnails. If you missed part 1, read it here.

favorite space: hippiechic's kitchen

I'm working on my follow-up post on "how to get your space noticed" on Rate My Space, and that led me to one of my all-time favorite kitchens, recently #1 top rated for quite awhile.

Here's the description: "Small 11x15 aging 1980s kitchen in need of an update! The house was built in the 1920s. We wanted to remain true to the original architecture and period of the house. We went with stacked cabinets with inset doors, latches and soapstone which was used alot for countertops during the time the house was built."

If I didn't live in a Florida-style Mediterranean house, I'd copy hippechic's kitchen!

favorite outdoor spaces: Nikki & KatG

Here's my Rate My Space inspiration for my pitiful screened pool area (or lanai as we call it in Florida).

Nikkicrumpet's pool oasis

KatG's genius

I never tire of looking at Nikkicrumpet's pool and gardens. And then there's the beauty (and humor!) of KatG's Florida lanai.

Here's what I did yesterday (left), with visions of improving my poolside space. I cut almost everything down to the soil. If humans can get arrested for cruelty to plants, come visit me in the big house.

I'd neglected my lanai plants badly this year. They're only 2 years old, but grew like weeds. My favorites, 2 Robellini palms (pygmy date), have fuzzy white stuff on them.

I'd love some suggestions on not-t0-messy flowering plants for color. But DH doesn't want a lot of debris in the pool. We do have an automatic floor cleaning system.

The exposure is eastern and the pool deck gets full sun almost all day. Screen cuts about 20%. Love to hear your suggestions or any links I should look at! 

PS: Please click the links above to visit all of Nikkicrumpet's and KatG's spaces, and don't forget to rate them!

Get your photos noticed on Rate My Space, part 1

I enjoy browsing HGTV's Rate My Space website to look for the gems that didn't make it to the front page (or at least the first 5 pages of "today's most viewed"). IOW, wonderful spaces that get high ratings, but not a lot of views or ratings.

There are gazillions of them. I'll be featuring some of my favorites here going forward. (Please bring your "finds" to my attention by leaving a comment!)

Often I find photos like Ally6's "Elegant charcoal gray living room," above. This is the exact size she posted, not much bigger than the RMS thumbnail for her space, at right.

So I got to thinking, with all the decorating talent displayed on Rate My Space, why do some wonderful spaces get lost almost as quickly as they appear?

Of course subject matter is a big factor - kitchens are the most popular spaces. Even bad kitchens get viewed because RMS-ers are very interested in kitchens. And sometimes you see viewing trends. For instance, nurseries and bedrooms seem to be very popular right not.

So here comes the geek stuff, if you're still with me...

Whatever category you're uploading to, you're relying on a small (150 x 115 pixel) thumbnail to entice viewers to click and actually visit your space. Once, there they are going to evaluate it and do one of about 6 things....

1. Enjoy it (or not), hit the back button and go on to the next space
2. Read the text, get drawn in, and actually look at more of your photos
3. Leave a comment and forget to rate
4. Rate but not take the time to comment
5. Rate AND comment - the jackpot!
6. Do #5 and then visit and rate more of your spaces. RMS heaven!

In Ally6's case, her thumbnail drew me in with it's beautiful magazine-like composition, with the chic lamp (I love black shades) and the colors and contrast. On the page, I saw the same photo, but much smaller than usual, 170 x 226. Loving the room, I took off my glasses and squinted up close at the screen, loved it even more, left a comment and a 5 star rating.

But I'm guessing that for some, the small size and lack of detail might diminish their interest in the space. So maybe they never get past #1.

500 x 667 portrait photo posted by ThePickledHutch

(Visit her blog here.)

Rate My Space recommends a maximum pixel width of 500! That means RMS will render your large photo up to to either 500 x 667 (portrait) or 500 x 375 (landscape). Like the photo below (another neat lamp), posted by new RMS-er ThePickledHutch.

Look at the difference in web page "real estate" between Ally's photo at the very top and Pickled Hutch's. So always upload a photo that's at least 500 pixels wide. Portrait will be larger, 667 high, so if your subject lends itself to that orientation, by all means use it!

Many good photos would also benefit from some simple photo editing to enhance them, but that's another post. I use Adobe Photoshop Elements for Windows ($99), 'til I break down and get it for my Mac (iPhoto is worthless).

I'm not a photographer, but I love taking digital photos of interiors. You can view all my RMS photos here, if you want to compare thumbnails, photo size, orientation, etc. (PS...Please don't forget to rate!) Also, please visit Ally6 and ThePickledHutch and rate their spaces too.

If you're still reading this post, I proclaim you an honorary geek!

Happy Sunday!

what an honor... thank-you, Kathy!

Thank you, Kathy Price-Robinson, award-winning journalist, owner of Kathy's Remodeling Blog, AND friend of Angelo Surmelis! Today, Kathy featured me and a photo of my kitchen in "A little bit of celebrity right here on the blog," her post on the Rate My Space episode I appeared on last week.

Kathy's blog is a wonderful resource for do-it-yourselfers and remodelers. I'm eagerly awaiting her upcoming interview with Angelo on his new kitchen remodel for her Pardon Our Dust series in the Los Angeles Times. Here's a sneak peak.

Kathy, I love your blog and this is a HUGE honor! Thank you so much!

Angelo, can you save my bath?

This is NOT one of my favorite spaces. I know it's not the worst ever, but I really don't like my master bathroom. I don't know what happened. Maybe I blacked out or something when I was making the selections with the builder.

I don't drink, so it wasn't a drunken stupor. Whatever. The fact is my master bath doesn't go with the rest of my house.

The only thing I like about it is the Mirror TV (how-to is here) over the tub. I see HGTV from everywhere but the shower. Cool.

So anyway, I'm floating this out there in case Angelo Surmelis of Rate My Space - the TV show - happens to drop in here.

My friend Patty votes the maximum number of times for every Dream Home and assorted HGTV sweepstakes. She says, "Why not? Somebody's gotta win." And she's right. So here goes!

favorite space: a new rms record?

I spotted jfell's "my new kitchen photos" space when it was #2 on RMS's "most recently posted" list.

Now, 2 days and 32,733 views later, it has 329 ratings and 4.4 score. Now THAT's gotta be some kind of record. Surprised, jfell remarked that if she'd known her remodeled 80's kitchen would be so popular, she'd have added some fresh flowers. LOL! :)

When I uploaded my kitchen in late November 2007, it got 11,000 views in 2 days, which someone said was very good, and it got to the front page. I know there are more users now, but has any space ever come close to this? 33,000? I'd love to know.

So congratulations, jfell! I don't think the fresh flowers would have mattered one bit!!!

If you're not among the hundreds who've already rated this great space, click here!