DIY: Fancy Shmancy Drapery Hardware

This DIY has been in the works for mucho moons.  You see, there's a lot of red tape involved in getting something finished in my house.  I won't go into brass tacks, but this here project has taken three seasons to finish and blog.  Enough idioms for one post?  Me too.  So without further ado (last one I swear), here she is...

When I decided to put curtains up in our bedroom, I was so enthralled with the fabric choices and trims that I completely neglected to think about hardware.  So when it came time to do so I was kind of in the dark about the situation.  You see, it is very difficult to find fabulous drapery hardware let alone fabulous drapery hardware that doesn't cost a fortune.  I looked high and low and finally I found the ones I wanted...

I thought these beautiful gilded jobs from Gould New York would be the perfect fit for our "black, gold and pink" boudoir.  And then I discovered it would set me back a cool 85 bucks for just one Gould NY finial.  I needed four finials plus two rods.  Not happening.  So I made some of my own.  They aren't gilded with 24-carat gold, but they do the trick for me.

I started with allen+roth wood hardware that I purchased at Lowe's.  My total expenditure for all of the hardware was around $120.  That's for two windows.  Here they are before:

I needed two roughly four foot rods, but they didn't have that at Lowe's, so I bought one eight foot rod and took it to Home Depot to have it cut in half.  (They wouldn't do it at Lowe's.)  I don't have a ton of pictures, but my process was very simple.

1.  Spray everything (except for the rings) gold (or the accent color- whatever it may be).  Spraying everything the accent color instead of the main color allows for less taping later on.

2.  Allow to dry completely.

3.  Tape off the parts you want to remain gold.  This is up to you and a stylistic choice depending on the ridges and details of your hardware.  Use an Exacto knife to clean up the edges.

4.  After everything is taped, give it another spray with high gloss black.  I used the industrial spray paint because it covers so nicely and comes in the color I needed.

5.  Remove the tape and voila!