It's Curtains for me!

FINALLY. But they're not done yet...

Last June we bought a fixer-upper.  A charming, 1980's neglected home.  In the 9 months that we have lived here, we have be slowly making progress on making our home our own and bringing it into the present.  We have replaced the carpet upstairs, painted ceilings, walls, and trim, purchased new appliances for the kitchen, put in a new furnace and air conditioning, painted the kitchen cabinets, changed out the kitchen hardware, and the list goes on.  when you have so many BIG things to do, sometimes the little things get put off or just seem to take forever.  Our curtains fall into that little category.


The living room is not quite complete yet.  so far we have painted the walls, ceiling, and trim, hung a few pictures, and replaced the hardware on the front door.  We still have to put in the laminate flooring and then we will eventually get around to installing some built-ins to store books and media.  For some time, though, I have been the look out for curtains.  When you are practically re-doing an entire house, you have a constant list of things to "be on the lookout" for.  Also, because we have so much to do, I have set some pretty strict budgets for things, and that can make it difficult to find items, sometimes most of the time.  I feel like I looked high and low for curtains.  I looked at Ikea, T.J. Maxx, Target, Walmart, World Market, Gabriel Brother's, Marc's and really couldn't find anything already made within my budget.  I really wanted to spend no more than $40 for all  four panels total, so $10 per panel.  I know, that is ridiculously low, but I just had a hard time pulling the trigger on something more expensive.  I liked these from Ikea in brown, but they were way over budget.  

 I also like these from World Market, but they were over budget as well.  

I briefly toyed with the idea of making them, but when I looked at fabric I struggled to find any that I liked that would be within my budget.  I liked this fabric from Dwell Studio that I saw at Joanne's. But it was also over budget.

Another struggle I had was with trying to find something that would coordinate with the rest of the living room.  The walls are a soft, dove-gray (Bay Waves by Valspar).  I have a rug that I love which features a large, modern pattern of berries and branches in a dark blue/green, chocolate brown, khaki, and cream color scheme.  I knew I wanted to keep the rug so I felt the need to stay in the same color scheme, especially if I wanted a curtain with a pattern.  I very much love rooms with a mixture of patterns, but the mixture has to be done well.  It has to strike this balance of not being to matchy-matchy and not clashing completely.  It's a fine balance.


I think I finally was able to find something I like in the curtains that I found at Target.  They were about $17 a panel, and I really liked them, so my husband (eager to stop having to talk about the curtains) told me to forget about the budget and put them into the cart.  When we got home, I took them out of the package and delightfully discovered that they were extremely wide in comparison to out windows.  I am planning on replacing the wooden blinds with cream colored Roman shades because I love the look of long panels paired with a crisp Roman shade in the middle.  Kinda like this:

I feel really bad, but I cannot for the life of me remember where this photo is from.  So if this is your photo, let me know so that I can give proper credit. I think maybe it was on hgtv.com...

So the Roman shades will be coming soon, now that I finally have the curtains to know how to coordinate the colors.  Since we are planning on putting a Roman shade in the middle, I wanted to hang the curtains a bit wider than the windows so that they do not cover too much of the sunlight.  When I hung one panel up I felt like it was way too wide for what I wanted, especially given the amount of space between the two windows, so I decided to cut the panel in half, thus creating two panels out of one.  So I kept two panels, cut each in half and hemmed the raw edge.  Since I only needed two panels instead of 4, the total cost for the panels for the living room was about $34.  Completely under budget.  I know that not everyone would necessarily like their panels to be thinner, but it works for us in our living room.  And believe it or not, when the panels are closed, they do completely cover the windows.  Now I just need to keep an eye out for those Roman shades.

Excuse Me

Well, the blog has been a little neglected, but with a good and exciting excuse.  We have been remodeling our kitchen and it's been taking up most of my free time during my son's naps.  Typically I use a few naps a week to work on my Etsy shop, blog, and sew, but lately they have been spent working on our kitchen. It's still a work in progress, but here is what we have done so far:

• Removed 2 layers of wall paper
• Painted walls, ceiling, and trim
• Painted our kitchen cabinets using a Rustoleum Cabinet Transformations Kit
• Replaced the cabinet hardware
• Spray painted and hung a new chandelier

We still need to:

• Have the new counter tops installed (We have our template appointment next week!)
• Tile the back splash
• Install the new laminate flooring
• Have a new patio door installed

We are going to wait to reveal the afters until they are completely done, but here's a look at some before & during pictures:

Close-up: Wallpaper layer # 1

Close-up: Wallpaper layer #2

During the Removal of the Wallpaper

 The exciting reveal of the afters to come hopefully in the next month.  However, since we are waiting on various installs and the kitchen is less hands-on for me, I can get back to the giant pile of sewing projects that has piled up for me.  Have a great weekend!

Totally Tutorials

One of the fantastic blogs that I follow is Totally Tutorials.  It's an incredible blog with a constantly growing collection of great tutorials from all around the blogosphere.  Well, today they are featuring one of my tutorials, How to Make a Fabric Covered Cork Board.  Be sure to check out all the other great, free tutorials.  New tutorials are added every day!