Living Room Curtains

Yes, I’m talking about curtains again. But this time they’re in the living room. They’re the same curtains that we put in the master bedroom, but we used the white rod from IKEA rather than the black one.

I must admit, I love how they brighten up the space. They’re not too “heavy” looking and I really like how they frame the windows and doors. It’s such a statement when you first walk into our home.

I had debated for.ev.er. about using a stencil on some plain curtains, but I’m honestly loving the fresh and clean look.

Let me just vent for a second… our windows and doors (all 4 of them together) are about 160″ long. Because of the length, any curtain rod that I could find was like $150 and over…. Who wants to pay that for a curtain rod? Certainly not me…

I seriously thought about DIYing a curtain rod with some PVC pipe and spray paint, but I knew that the paint would wear off over time leaving my OCD self with scratch marks all over the rod. Not only that, but this particular door/ window combo is the first thing people see. I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. I knew what I wanted, but couldn’t bring myself to spend the money to do it.

I cruised around the internet praying that I would find a cheaper alternative… Enter in IKEA and we have an amazingly cheap solution…. that’s actually legit. I found this and it totally changed my curtain rod world. With a price tag of $5.99, for a rod that extended to 152″, I knew that I could make it work. And umm, the $5.99 price is amazing!

Ok, I’m not going to lie. I was somewhat hesitant about the rod. It seemed too good to be true. So naturally I figured that it would be made out of a cheap and flimsy metal. This is so NOT the case. These rods are awesome! They are made of thick metal and even have a soft, rubber middle support so that the rod it’s self doesn’t scratch. We are so impressed with these rods… and for $5.99?! Next time I go back to IKEA, I’ll take three please.

And no, I wasn’t paid to say this about IKEA’s curtain rods… they don’t even know who I am… I just thought I would share my experience in case there are people out there going through the same, “I really need a long curtain rod, but totally don’t want to sell my arm to get one…”.

Anyways, we love the curtains (also from IKEA) and they’ve totally made the room brighter and lighter!

Major love here!

Big Smiles!

Master Bedroom Curtains

Our house is basically curtain-less. Yes, we do have bamboo blinds, but they’re a bit see through… My husband thought I was insane, literally, when we got them in the mail. He wanted me to send them back, but I couldn’t. I had to give them a chance…

They have really grown on me. Some days I go back and forth between the light color, which we have, and the dark color bamboo. I might eventually want to switch them out one by one for something darker, but I’m completely happy with them for now.

One big draw back though: they are completely see through at night! It’s not like we have to worry a ton about it. I’m pretty sure our corn and bean crops aren’t staring at us with binoculars or anything, but we did live in the city for a while and I get all sorts of freaked out thinking about what could be lurking outside in the darkness…. Let’s not go there.

Hence the need for curtain panels. Problem was I couldn’t find anything reasonably priced that I liked. Sure, if I wanted to spend $100 plus on a panel, then by all means my selection was loaded, but it wasn’t in the budget…

A while back we were at Ikea (sigh) and I ran across some extremely decently priced window panels, that came in a pair! Oh, they were the extra long length that I needed too! Yes! But, I only bought 1 package of them… That was the problem. At the time I wasn’t sure where I was going to put them.

A few weeks ago it hit me! Let’s put them in the living room and master bedroom! My sweet mother in law was making a trip to see us from the big city and I had her get all sort of window covering goodness at Ikea. She made my day! (THANKS!!!)

Curtains have seriously made all the difference!

I have to admit, the rod hardware from Ikea was so reasonable priced… like $5.00… that I almost passed on it thinking that it would be cheap! Let me just tell you that I am SO GLAD I went with it! Those $5.00 rods are WAY better than the $35.00 rods that I’ve purchased elsewhere!

I still need to find finials for the ends of the rods. But lets face it, anything is better than what we did have:

Ah, the moving days… What progress we’ve made! Just keepin’ it real!

Breakfast Nook Curtains

Here I am, finally revealing my breakfast nook curtains. Which I made, by the way. Sewing and all. I’m so proud of myself.

This was a huge triumph for me! I mean, I had to do quite a lot of sewing with an end result that would be visible to anyone in my home. No pressure…

It was actually a lot simpler than I thought it would be and something that I’m really glad that I did. I’m practically bursting at the seams to work on more sewing projects.

Plus, the outcome of the curtains is enough to make me want to continue. They’re lovely and just what I had been imagining for the space.

Happy dance! I just love how they turned out.

This space is coming together! Big smiles!