How to Find Affordable Custom Roman Shades for Your Kitchen

I’m sharing my top secrets on how to get custom roman shades for your kitchen at cheap. This is a roman shades hack I used for my farmhouse kitchen and dining room, with them constantly getting praised by guests. I’ll also share the cost breakdown on my custom roman shades.

For my kitchen furniture, decor and paint colors, you can visit Shop My Home -> Kitchen Sources.

If you are looking for a ready-made roman shade, be sure to check out my Best Farmhouse Roman Shades.

When you need a custom roman shades for your kitchen

Whenever I post kitchen and dining room photos on my Instagram, one of the most asked questions is where I got those roman shades.

The truth is, it is not store bought, but rather a hack.

First of all, it is custom made – but please don’t get scared when you heard the word “custom”! In fact, it is a lot cheaper than a traditional custom roman shades, and even cheaper than buying some pre-made shades from furniture stores.

Originally, I was interested in buying them from a store. I was looking for a modern farmhouse style roman shades to go with my kitchen and dining room. At first I had my eyes on Pottery Barn’s roman shade, but it has two problems:

1. The width is not fully customizable. I needed to order two roman shades for dining room and kitchen, in the same set. My kitchen has a wide window. So even picking the largest size, it will leave a 2-inch gap on each side of the window.
2. The price is a bit high. Two roman shades will cost me over $650.

How to get custom roman shades at affordable price

So I took a semi-DIY approach for my kitchen and dining room roman shades. This is not a real DIY project because I didn’t make the shades by my hand. But because I DIY’ed the process of designing, sourcing and getting them made, I’ll call it a “semi” DIY roman shades project.

Here’s how to get custom roman shades at low cost:

I bought two packs of table cloth from World Market. Then I had an Etsy store make two custom roman shades with the fabric I provided. The total cost of getting two roman shades made was around $250, including all materials and labor. What a great deal!

The Etsy store I used is called SewLovelyByKelly, but there are also other stores that offer custom roman shades service.

I chose their custom roman shades with cord. There’s cordless version too, but it will be pricier. Also they have a faux roman shade option if your roman shades is for decoration only.

I provided my own fabric but used the store’s regular liner option rather than blackout liner, because I want some light to come throw the shades. This will to make my kitchen brighter.

When you decide to order custom roman shades from an Etsy store, make sure to chat with the seller first. For custom orders, a lot of times Etsy seller will create a custom order for you with the details of your order and the total cost of product and shipping calculated for you.

Also, even when you are not fully decided, you can still chat with the seller to get an accurate estimate on the job and shipping cost.

When you first add an order to the cart, the shopping cost can be higher than it actually will cost you, especially if you are buying 2 or more window treatments.

Kitchen and dining room custom roman shades cost breakdown

The exact costs of my two custom roman shades from SewLovelyByKelly is $253 – that is $127 each! Here’s the cost breakdown:

• Fabrics: $30 (I got two packs during a promotion, original $24.99 each pack)
• Labor – $164
• Liner – $24
• Shipping(NJ to CA) – $35

Considering these are custom to my kitchen and dining room window size, I couldn’t be happier.

My kitchen and dining space is modern farmhouse inspired, but you can easily choose different fabric to make it fit your home! So it is a perfect time to talk about fabrics and share a few good options I have found…

How to choose fabric for custom roman shades

When choosing fabrics for roman shades, there are a few things to keep in mind:

Fabric weight

The roman shade fabric should be thick enough so it is not see-through. This is important because roman shades has this folding mechanism that you probably don’t want it to show through the fabric.

Fabric types

It is recommended to use upholstery fabrics. What is upholstery fabric you may ask? Well, it is those fabrics that are more durable than the general sewing fabrics and can withstand quite some wear and tear.

Although in fabric stores upholstery fabrics tend to be expensive, there’s really some places you can get them at a much cheaper price.

I have shared some super affordable general home decor fabric resources here in this DIY pillow post. I’ll also listed a few options below that are specifically good for making your own roman shades.

Lining

You don’t need to provide roman shades lining fabric, usually. The Etsy store I did mine at has lining fabrics.

Instead of buying some cheap lining fabric and probably spending more money on shipping, I just got the lining fabric from the Etsy store to save time and headache.

Shipping

When you buy tablecloth, it might be more economical to order online and have the store store ship it directly to the roman shades maker. A lot of online stores either have free shipping or very low shipping charge comparing to shipping them yourself.

Roman shades fabric sources

To make roman shades, you really need the fabrics of a large size, so the best way to find affordable fabrics is to look at table cloth choices. Here are a few fabric I think will make great roman shades at the fraction of the price of normal upholstery fabrics from fabric stores:

If you are looking for a ready-made roman shade, be sure to check out my Best Farmhouse Roman Shades.

I hope you enjoy this custom roman shades hack! To get all the sources of what’s in my kitchen, including furniture, decor and paint colors, you can visit Shop My Home -> Kitchen Sources or Dining Room Sources

Want to learn more tips and tricks on home decorating and DIY? Follow me on Instagram!

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