Box Valance Thingy-Mabob

Alright, time to post about that box valance thingy I've mentioned. (Oh, and Mateo would like me to say that it did not take six months as previously stated, but more like two because for the first four months we couldn't make up our minds what to do. My mistake.)

Dilemma: large patio sliding door, wanted some kind of covering and nighttime privacy. But I abhor, abhor I tell you!, vertical blinds. The devil should take them. Oh, sorry. I'm back. Just a bit of passion there. Anyways. I also have my gas stove right on one side of the door. Flames plus curtains...well, you get the idea.

See the genius placement of the stove? And the mess, just keepin' it real.

So a regular curtain rod has a brace in the middle for large expanses. If I did that I'd have to open curtains one panel to each side. Thanks to the stove that wasn't an option. I needed to pull the curtains all the way to the side opposite the stove, and then beyond to the wall space so that people could get in and out without fighting with curtains. Although that could provide entertainment, not so practical.

Solution: steel cable and ring clips.
But, I was worried about what it would look like. Ikea makes a cool affordable cable curtain rod, but my closest Ikea is three hours away. Mateo came up with the idea to hide the cable inside a box valance. Ours needed to span from the upper cabinet to the wall, so we had no visible sides, just the front.

A view behind the magic.

So Mateo bolted some eye hooks into what would become our braces, and added as much tension as possible so that the cable wouldn't sag. Oh, and we slipped the rings on before he bolted it all down.

Uh, yeah. He had to tighten that up. No worries.

Then he mounted it to the wall and I clipped the curtain panels on and voila! 

Open...

...and closed.

  Some day I'll tell you all about how much I (sarcasm power on)love my white ceramic tile kitchen floor (sarcasm power off). It's nice feeling like we are not some strange performers at night anymore. We like our neighbors and we want them to not be weird-ed out by us. :)