I am giving partial credit to the dogs for this project not because they were actually able to leap up to the top of our windows and chew up the ends of our curtain rods. But because of the project that lead up to the making of the new curtain rod ends.

When we moved into our house 17 years ago one of the first things that we did was paint the kitchen. So it was certainly getting to be time to repaint anyway but then the dogs did this.

And well we just couldn’t ignore the dingy paint job anymore. In the course of re-painting I took down our existing curtains.

I really liked all the extra light that came in the window when the shades were down so I decided to move the curtain rod up higher to let more light in.

The curtain rods that we have been using are the tension kind that fit inside the window sill. But I figured I could buy some new brackets to hold them up and make some sort of new ends for them.

After contemplating some different materials I decided to try using plastic bottle caps and my first idea was just to glue some caps together spray paint them and call it a day.

Then I had the brilliant idea to kill some brain cells instead. So I got out my heat gun and my stencil cutter and a fan because I was trying not to breath in too many fumes.

And after much trial and error I was able to fashion a few different shapes.

Sorry to you serious jewelry makers but I did actually melt plastic in my dapping block.

I also enlisted my hot glue gun.

After all that I wasn’t sure if I liked the shape that I made. So I made a different one.

Which has left me with:

• A set of unmatched curtain rod knobs.
• A second window with no curtain
• The question of which one I like better
• The task of making three more matching knobs
• And the strong possibility that my window will just look like this for a while 🙂

Happy Upcycling,