While Joel and I were painting our house in Nebraska getting it ready for sale, we were lamenting how we wished we could afford nicer drop clothes. We have always bought the cheapest plastic stuff you can find and have gotten what we paid for-rips, trips, and constant readjusting because it won’t stay in place. We have done enough painting over the past 8 years of marriage that an investment in the beginning would have paid for itself by now. Alas we were poor back then and sadly we are not too much better off eight years later.

As we were getting the dining room ready we took down the curtains that had been hanging in there for the last 6 years. They were cheap cotton loop curtains from Wal*mart we had purchased to cover the windows after our house was robbed. Looking at them now one could tell they had better days. The sun had bleached all the folds that were facing out towards the sun (they were south facing windows, so those curtains had no chance of lasting long term). I decided that I’d keep them for some project like totes or something out of the good parts.

Then I got a brilliant idea. Why don’t we use the curtains as drop clothes! The plastic that we had wouldn’t fit the whole room and the curtains we had would do great fitting into the odd spots. They also worked great in the bathroom as pictured above.

We can chalk that one up to making do with what you have!

What creative things have you done to get what you need/want without having to spend money?

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