Progress

So... yes... it would probably have been best if I had waited until we have cleaned up the room, put away all of the weird home improvement junk, and made the kids actually put their toys and art stuff away.

But, I don't foresee that happening today.

This is our family room (there is more to it... but... it's covered in toys, swim towels, jars of catepillars... and I do have a tiny bit of pride, it turns out.

This is our favorite room, since it's huge, and it has windows covering three sides that look out on the tree tops and green space of our yard... and is the reason we bought this house.

It was up until last week... the same maddening off white walls, trim, and window treatments as the rest of the house when we bought it.

This room featured two of the large brass boob lights... and... well, had absolutely no feature to speak off outside of the view, and did I mention it's all panelling?


Okay...

BEFORE:

AFTER-ISH:




We've painted the wall the same yellow/wheat/golden color we had painted our front hallway. We're in love with this color. It's got depth, and adds what I'd like to call a sophisticated cheeriness. Plus it goes with just about everything. Now I took these with my iPhone in some harsh lighting... so... disclaimer... it is not mustard yellow in real life. It's more golden.

While I would never in my life pick out these cream honeycomb shades, the fact is, they work, they are super energy efficient, and we can't afford to outfit 10 windows with new blinds. My goal was just to disguise them as much as possible, and as cheaply as possible.

So we hung these rods (Target), and I bought two tablecloths at Cost Plus World Market. It turns out that a 60" panel would work perfectly in here (we've got furniture and baseboard heaters that made full length curtains a No for here... plus... with all the toys, moving furniture, activities, I just want to keep it more casual. A 120"x 60" table cloth makes 4 pre hemmed curtains... you just have to sew up a side seam (which makes these really fail proof curtains). It also makes these $5 a panel. Sure they are only 30" wide and won't cover up even one window... all we wanted was to have a finished window look... we use the shades to block sun and at night for privacy. I actually didn't want too much curtain bulk at the sides because it would cut into our view. These are perfectly enough to look like curtains, and to cover up the ends of the shades that frustratingly hung an inch past the window frames, without taking over the windows. I'm happy. I also grabbed some napkins and stiched them together to replace some throw pillowcases that didn't look to hot.