After talking about it for four years, the blinds in the living room are finally gone and replaced by wonderful curtains!
A few months ago, after Jim finally agreed to let me replace his beloved blinds that he chose himself before we met, I started looking for the perfect curtains.
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| Allen & Roth Green Waterbury Panels from Lowes. |
When I saw these curtains, I couldn’t get them out of my head. They didn’t have them at my local Lowes store, so I was bit nervous about just ordering them without seeing them in person. But like I said, I just couldn’t stop thinking about them, and any other curtains I looked I just didn’t compare. I wanted a real garden look, something that would tie in the nature from the outdoors.
Well, I finally got to see them in person at another Lowes location, and I loved them even more than I did just seeing them online. When I held the paint chip from our living room walls up to them, I knew they were the right choice, so I bought every panel they had, even though they didn’t have enough. Then I ordered the final two online.
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| Just to remind you what the blinds looked like in the room. Old picture, but the blinds still looked the same. |
After I had the curtains, Jim started asking me when I was going to hang them. I think he was secretly ready for a change too. Well, I had to get curtain rods for them, and I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on them. I remembered that I still had wood brackets and finials from a former house I used to own, so I didn’t have to buy those. All that was needed was to get a wooden closet doweling to make the rods and paint them. Then we would be able to take down the blinds and install the new rods and curtains.
Here’s what the room looks like now. It has the garden feel I wanted, and the curtains tie in nicely bringing the feeling of nature in from the outside.
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| After with the new curtains. |
You can see that I decided to paint the curtain rods white. The background of the curtains is actually light beige, much more creamy than in the picture on the Lowes site, which looked more white. But I actually love the contrast between the curtain background and the white rods, especially with the white trim of the windows.
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| Smaller window on the south side of the living room. |
Yes, that’s my car you see through the window, and yes that’s Jasper’s tail in the lower right-hand side of the picture. Tia is all tuckered out from our visit at Nana & Papa’s today, so she’s asleep. See how nicely the curtains go with my green sofa. The colors do not match, but pretty much all greens go together, so I’m very pleased.
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| Another view of the front window. |
Jasper is loving the new curtains. He’s able to look out the window much easier now. Jim is also happy with them because he likes that we’re able to open all the windows now. Before, we couldn’t open the window on the right side of the front windows, because the blinds were in the way when they were open.
Now I’m kind of debating whether I want to get the roman shades for the windows or not. I’m kind of liking the way they look without them. Here’s the inspiration of picture of what I think the shades would look like.
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| As you can see, this inspiration is from the wonderful blog “The Lettered Cottage.” I can’t find the exact post this picture is from, but you have the link to their very helpful blog if you want to look. |
So what do you think? Should I get roman shades to go with these curtains? I think I might want them because it would be nice to be able to leave the curtains themselves open all the time, and be able to close the shades for privacy at night.
Otherwise, my next big goal for the living room is to get rid of the carpet and replace it with either new carpet or refinish the hardwood that’s hidden beneath the carpet. I have a feeling I’ll be able to convince Jim to agree to new carpet before I’ll be able to convince him to agree to refinish the floors.
So, there you have it! My new living room…or at least, that’s what it feels like!
Breakdown of costs:
7 Curtains Panels $174.79 less discount $157.31
6 Curtain Rod Brackets Free, because I already had them.
4 Curtain Rod Finials Free, again, I already had them.
1 10′ Closet doweling $14.38 less discount $12.94
1 6′ Closet doweling $8.98 less discount $8.08
Spray paint white $3.58 less discount $3.23
Spray paint clear $3.82 less discount $3.44
Total: 185.00
Pretty darned good I think for the amount of change it made in the room!!
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| One last look! |