Curtain Shuffle

I was anxious to get some curtains up in our main living space almost as soon as we moved in. It would give the appearance of being finished and "grown-up",I rationalized, even if it wasn't!

We inherited all the window trimmings from our homes previous owners. Here is a shot of our waaay BEFORE living room view...


Although we knew the hand-made, pull-cord curtains wouldn't make the cut, Spencer wanted to salvage the existing curtain rod if possible. I picked up these long, white satin panels at Super Linens for $12 a pop. It was too simple. The rod was also too big and made pulling the curtains open and shut with ease an impossibility. Plus, I couldn't help think that the tie back look was more "country living" than the "modern comfort" look I was hoping for...


So I moved those pearly whites into the master bedroom and hung 'em high and wide to make our corner windows look more...awesome.


So back to the drawing board. Erna had given me the heads up that Wal-mart had a nice and affordable curtain selection. After about 45minutes of going back and forth on my opinion, I settled on 2 french blue satin floor panels from Better Homes and Gardens and 4 beige textured sheer panels. I also nabbed up-not one, BUT TWO new curtain rods for the LR. One no-fuss, no-see for the sheer panels and another decorative rod for the Lined blue curtains. TK came over to help us install, and while relived to get them off the back off the couch...I was less than impressed.


The beige just seemed dirty, or washed out. I packed 'em up and trucked it back to WM the next day (gotta love a no questions return policy!) I bought the same sheers in a pure white. Third times a charm, because this combo certainly charmed me enough to pronounce this project DONE!


We have a few more things to hang in the Living/Dining space (and thanks to TK, another turn of touch up painting-more on that later) before I'm ready to turn my focus on to the master bedroom and bathroom...

who needs rules anyway!?

Well, I this is my first 2010 post and I have to say, its not too exciting. It's difficult to work full-time, party on NYE, buy and paint a house and still find time to write about it...especially when no one's really listening at the moment ;)

Plus my technological handicap is starting to show. I admit it. I am maybe the worlds only college grad who has problems uploading photos from her camera. Forgive me?

With the help of my Mom and our wonderful friend KT, Spencer and I accomplished A LOT yesterday. It went pretty well, except for a dead hammer and a sadly patched hallway hole (we're working on it!) Here is what we managed to get done in just one day...

-We painted! Coats went up on the bedroom, the living and dining rooms, the hallway and the kitchen.
-We removed the *gorgeous golden bath doors* and cleaned up the mess
-Spencer's Dad removed some random hall light fixture and we patched up the hole it left (ruining our new paint job in the process)
-We removed the fancy wooden coral swing doors that separated the hall from the rest of the house (this is where we lost our hammer head)

Removing the light and the doors from the hallway really updated the look of the space almost instantly! We had been on the fence about removing the doors just yet (they are tacky, but so funny!) Without them, the hall feels open and extra-large.

We had a tough time picking paint. One half of our brains said "go for it! get crazy and splash up some wild color on the wall!" while the other half reminded us to keep cool and neutral-and let the things we bring into the space make it interesting. Although it felt boring to repeat 2 sort of blah colors on most of the walls we were going for a cohesive look. We picked Valspar's "Swoosh" for the living room, hallway and half of our bedroom. "Whirlwind" went up in the kitchen, dining room and eventually the foyer (tall walls yikes!). We reused the old blue we had left from our current bedroom to paint 2 accent walls in our new bedroom. Score! It cost us ZERO dollars and we already know we like it!

I'll get into these projects more when I can post pictures.Valspar brand paint was a little pricey, but great because it includes a primer in the paint and cuts down on coats...plus we scored 2 gallons at the "oops!" paint price of $6! "Swoosh" is a sort of coffee and cream color (can't you tell that from the name?) and "Whirlwind" is a lovely warm lacy white. What a difference the right white makes! I forget the name of our room blue, but It's made by Behr and it reminds me of a stormy ocean blue...

We have loads to do today. Spencer, Erna and PattyMayo our on the case today while I'm at work. I left them a nice long list of projects to complete so they would stay on track. I'll return to help them after, when we'll discuss flooring options and paint for the bathroom and other bedrooms. I said I would wait to paint the spares until a later date, but that lavender just isn't working with our new low key color scheme...so who knows!