Scraplog

Before & After: Shower Curtain

Today I want to share with you how I made a curtain into a shower curtain. First of all, you might wonder why? Why would I want to make a curtain into a shower curtain? Aren’t there enough shower curtains out there to choose from? The answer is yes, there are plenty of shower curtains out there for me to choose from but not in the size that I wanted!

In our master bathroom we just have a shower. Because there is no bathtub involved, it just has a small opening. So a shower curtain that is of regular proportions (most SC’s are 70“x72”) is too wide for our little space and it bunches up on the sides. But the main reason that a regular one wasn’t working for me is I wanted it to be taller. Here is a picture of the situation:

See that gap at the top? I wanted to do away with it. But that creates a problem. Because I couldn’t find any shower curtains that were tall enough. The only place I could find one (without breaking the bank) was on Amazon but they were all sold out. Then one day I was browsing around at Target (the happiest place on earth in my opinion) and I came across this natural colored linen curtain for $4! I originally thought I was going to just use it for the material but once I got it home I realized it might be perfect for my shower. So, as a test run, I used a tension rod I had lying around and propped it up there to see if I liked it. I loved it! It was also nice to have something in therein the natural color instead of the white. Now I just had a few more little problems to solve.

First, because the curtain didn’t have grommets to thread shower curtain rings through, it was a pain to move it aside when entering the shower and it would inevitably always come crashing down on me (believe me, this happened more than once!). So I knew that I needed to fix this for it to be a long term solution.

Second, our shower curtain liner wasn’t tall enough to be on the same level with the curtain. Hmmm… I had to think about it for a bit. Then this past Saturday, the solution came to me while I was taking a shower! So, I got out of the shower, and went to work.

Our shower curtain liner is fabric instead of plastic. You can find these at pretty much any store, I got mine at Target (of course!). We like it because we can just wash it instead of having to throw away those plastic ones that always start looking nasty after a while. I took the liner down, cut off one side to make it smaller to fit the width of our shower and then sewed on the extra to the bottom. Ta-da! Now our curtain liner was higher! Just a note, on the bottom of the liner there is a plastic thing that keeps it weighed down. First I removed it and then I added it to the new bottom. If want to make your shower curtain higher but not narrower, you can just buy two liners and cut a bit from the second one to sew a few more inches onto the bottom of the first one. I added 12 inches to mine so now it is 84” tall.

My next problem was making holes for the shower curtain rings for the linen curtain. So, I took the liner, lined it up with the curtain and marked on the curtain where the grommets were for the liner. Then, because my sewing machine has a button hole maker, I created button holes on those spots. You could also just put some grommets instead of button holes if you wanted. And that was it. Easy peasy. Just to remind you, here is the before again:

and here is the after:

I love it! It makes my shower and ceiling seem higher. I also love taking a shower even more! As I said previously, the shower curtain used to get all bunched up, now it fits just right and it feels like we have more room. It also makes the shower feel taller when you are in it.

If you like the change, go make one for yourself! It’s super easy!