COLOR! (in the living room)

First of all, Happy Valentine’s Day my SQUEEZIES! :) Hope you had a great one.

I’ve been working on some changes in our living room over the last couple of weeks, and I’m nowhere near close to done, but I just couldn’t wait to show you! I am LOVING how it's turning out -- so excited.

I don’t know if it’s the three inches of ice that have finally melted off our driveway (for the first time in two weeks), or the warmer temps we’re getting this week that is giving us hope for spring, or maybe it’s because the cat peed on the drapes…any one of them could be the reason for my spur-of-the-moment decision to make some changes to our front room.

What’s that? Hmmmm? Oh yeah…I skipped over the pee cat thing. She was off her meds for two long and the inevitable happened. This time though…I’m GLAD. Because that’s actually what started this ball rolling. See – pee cats are good for something! (And she’s really sweet and loving and yada yada…)

Anyhoo, enough mentions of pee for one post. Onward! It started when I took a drape down to wash it, and it just spiraled out of control from there.

For the past year or so, I’ve been trying to add more color to our living room. It looked like this back in the day:

OK, well there’s been color – it’s just been one color. Red. :)

And then I made a few more changes and it looked like this for quite some time:

Notice the trend? DARK. A ton of dark peices and accessories, and red fabrics – ONLY red. You see, for the longest time I thought our wall color was hard to work with. It’s called Beechwood Grey from Porter, and I like it – but for a long time I just felt like I needed to match it, you know?

So red was the direction I went…and I liked it for a while. But my style…it is a changin’.  :)

And taking that one drape down kind of got my wheels turning. I noticed how much brighter it got in the room with just the one panel down. So I took another down…and another…and you get the picture.

The front of our house doesn’t get direct sunlight, but you wouldn’t have been able to tell – the room was positively glowing. And I was in luuurve.

That’s what started the ball started rolling – and the wheels in my head churning. First up was to trim out the windows like I showed you here. I’ve slowly but surely done this around the house, and I’m about half way through the windows now.

And then, since I was going to paint the sills and everything around the window, I went ahead and recaulked both of them:

I didn’t even keep it clean and pretty, because I knew I was painting over it all in white.

And that I did – the new trim and drywall around the windows was painted out in glossy white. See how this started with a little bitty thing and got HUGE? :)

Then another idea came to mind. I love love LOVE my free sewing cabinet and Ballard-esque cafe shelves between the windows, but they have seemed so HEAVY to me lately:

(The iron snowflakes hanging in the windows that I tried to convince myself didn’t look like snowflakes have been gone for a while. They are now packed away in the Christmas decor. Cause they are snowflakes.)

Anyway…I’ve always felt like I needed something more substantial between those windows.

So I took it all away:

(I had just wiped down the wall – hence the dark marks.)

I contemplated leaving those windows nekked by the way, just like in our kitchen. I was smitten, I tell you. 

But then…then, I found THIS:

I was perusing Calico Corners last week (I hadn’t been to the fabric store in forEVER), saw this and couldn’t get it out of my head. It had COLOR – so many beautiful colors. And I just thought the print was stunning.

I couldn’t resist it. And I’m so glad I didn’t. Cause now that dark room looks like this:

Now, I’m showing you in between pics here – keep that in mind. I like to show the process of things so I really wanted to show you the progress thus far.

I think it’s a dramatic change, yes?:

That dresser has made the rounds around our house. It was the Bub’s changing table forever, then it moved to the office, and then it was in the basement for a while.

I made hubs drag it up the stairs to see if it would work and I fell. in. love.

Do you see how differently the wall color photographs? It drives me a little batty. It’s looking way pink in these pics, when it really has more of a greyish tint like in the nekked window picture above.

I’ve mentioned before that we don’t use this as a formal living room – we use it constantly. So the dresser is going to be fantastic storage for puzzles and other activities we do out there:

I have a Goodwill lamp that’s almost ready for the left up on top there. The beautiful wood crate? HomeGoods baby! (For $16!) Doesn’t it looked like I plucked it out of an antique store? LOVE that color too.

One of the things I’d love to do, especially now, is to get a slipcover made for the chair and sofa:

But even without covers, I love them SO MUCH MORE in this room now. It’s just crazy – I don’t know why, but they don’t bother me nearly as much. (But I AM going to slipcover. Oh yes…I am.)

I have a plan for the wall above the dresser too – I already have everything I’ll need. Can’t wait to get it up there!:

And yes, there ARE about 50 holes in that wall from the various changes I’ve made to it. :) They’ll all be covered with my plan. I’m not even gonna fill them. Buwahahaha!!!  :)

I’m hoping to get the rest of the changes made to this part of the room by the end of this week, so I’ll show you as soon as I’m done. There’s some other stuff I’m working on elsewhere in the space too, but that is going to take a bit longer.

But for now…I simple cannot believe the difference a little editing and new drapes made…the before:

And after:

WHOO, swoon, ACK…Happy Valentine’s Day to ME…I am love! Ha! :)

Can’t wait to show you the rest! So far it’s turning out just like it looked in my head…just hope the rest of it does. (I love when that happens!)

P.S. I have not even hemmed the drapes yet…that’s how not completed this room is. Did I mention I have little to no patience?? :)

Like my version of the Ballard Designs cafe shelves?
You’ll LOVE Knock Off Decor!

Tricky Tricky! (Window treatments)

Howdy! I still haven’t heard from two of the winners of the HomeGoods cards -- Cammy and Stephanie, holla at me!

So, remember when I showed you the start of our bedroom redo a couple of months ago? Remember the purple drapes?:

Oh my. They were looking pretty sad.

They were left over from the room before…and before. :) But obviously it was time for them to go. Then one of my lovely readers, Missy, told me about some drapes online at JCPenney – they were beautiful, they were the rust color I wanted, they had long lengths, they were reversible, aaaand they were only $12.99 each!

Ding! Ding! Ding! SCORE.

I was sold! I love the look of really full drapes, so I got the 95” length and got four panels. I was thrilled when I got them and they were the perfect color! I showed you the drapes in this post, when I was trying to figure out the area above the bed:

Yes, I think I know what I’m doing now…but no I’m not ready to show it just yet. :) Evil, I know.  :)

So anyhoo, I knew the plain rust side was a bit much, so I was planning to add a touch of cream to pull in the colors from the new bedding. My original thought was to trim them out with a thick band of grosgrain ribbon. Or maybe even use cream fabric paint.

But that’s a LOT of ribbon for four 95” panels. And the paint idea just sounded like a headache waiting to happen. (Taping off straight lines for miles – thanks but no thanks.)

I mentioned the drapes are reversible – the back side was a beautiful buffalo check print. When I hung the drapes the night we got them, I held up the check side and hubs and I both though they may read a bit too country for our taste.

But the other day I turned them around, just to see…and oh. my. I was in LURVE. I also left the rust side on the other end of the window for a good week, just to make sure my love was real.

It was. I was hooked on the check. :)

(I showed you a peek last week in my “Mom Cave” post.)

It’s slightly shimmery, it’s got the dark rust, a lighter rust, and it’s got the cream I was looking for all this time. AND it was there in front of us all along. I love when it works out for FREE.

When it comes to hanging my drapes, there’s a few things I do that I get asked about a lot -- the first is what I do to make them look pleated. I learned this little trick from a fellow decorator I used to work with…and it right up there with the top three window treatment tips ever. (In my itty bitty opinion.)

It’s good peeps. Really good. :)

Custom made drapes (or any nice treatments) are made with drapery hooks – and the hooks are used to hang them. They give the fabric a full, pleated, custom look when hung and look like this:

I’ve made all of the treatments in our home, (up till now!). I rarely sew them (I’m a hemming tape and iron kind of girl) and when I do sew I can barely do a straight line -- so doing something like the hooks is way over my head. I tried it once and let’s just say it just didn’t go well…at all. :)

The little trick I learned doesn’t need these dodads -- all you need are your rings with hooks. Instead of clipping your drapery rings to the top of the window treatment, or putting the rod through the top of the drapes…pull your fabric up, pinch it in sections and clip the back of the fabric from behind:

Like so:

You’ll notice I used two different types of rings – half of them were $1.99 at the thrift store, but I needed more to get the full look I was going for. They didn’t have to match cause you can’t even see them! 

See? Tricky tricky! ;)

I like to clip each side of the treatment, then the middle, then do the rest in (fairly) equal sections:

It does not have to be perfect. At least in our house.

The end result really depends on the fabric – this fabric is perfect! It’s just stiff enough to keep the pleats standing up, even though I have them clipped a good five inches down from the top.

Every once and a while (like every six months) I need to poof them up, but otherwise it works GREAT:

If you have a thinner fabric, you can still do this, but you’ll have to clip much higher on the fabric. Does that make sense? Otherwise you’ll have floppy pleats. And no one likes floppy pleats. :)

The result is a very custom look, without the custom price (or work!):

I do this with ALL of our drapes and absolutely love the look!

My second little trick is my short rods. I get a lot of questions on where to buy the short rods I use.

Well…you can’t. At least I haven’t found them -- that’s why I DIY my own. :)

Most of our drapes aren’t operational – we don’t close them for privacy because we have the roman shades. Because of that, I prefer not to use a long rod across the window. It’s just a personal thing – I don’t mind the look at all, but it can get costly to get a rod long enough to go the width of a double window.

So I just cut them myself – if it’s a wood rod, like in our family room:

I just use my miter box or saw to cut a long rod down to the size I want:

Then use a drill bit to add a new hole at the ends for the finials. That’s it!

I love doing this because it makes your drapes seem fuller than they are, and you can use a cheaper rod (maybe four feet?) and cut that down, instead of a huge six or eight foot one.

For metal rods, I use a tool you can find in the plumbing department:

 

I think it’s about $8? You just put the pole in, tighten, and turn it so the tool can cut it. It takes a few minutes, but it’s easy!

Of course, you’ll need two sets of finials and brackets, so sometimes that can override the whole saving money on the rod thing.  ;)

(Drats.)

Have I mentioned I LOVE my new-but-not-really drapes?:

You’ll notice in the pics above that the window is really close to the wall to the left…it seems the architects don’t consider our window treatments when building our homes! How could they NOT? Helloooo…it’s right up there with support beams and insulation and all the important stuff!

When I have a window that butts up against a wall like that, I just skip the finial. I didn’t use them at all in the Bub’s room:

I promise no one will notice. And if they do, give them a cookie. :)

So here’s one more shot (are you tired of seeing this spot yet?!) with our buffalo check drapes, DIY rods and pleats:

And the kitty was trying to get in every. single. shot. So here you go:

:)

JCPenney’s still has the drapes for sale! Even the 108” length is only $12.99 a panel. That’s crazy good! I could not even begin to make reversible, lined drapes that length for that amount. LURVE!!

The only color left is the terra cotta color, except in the longest length, and they have a bronze/pearl combo as well in that one. That color looks lovely as well. Check them out here!

I don’t think they look country at all now – just traditional. And loverly. Me likey.

P.S. Are you singing this in your head yet?

That’s right on time it’s trickaaaaaaaaaay…

I love the 90’s.

My nekked kitchen windows

Sooo…do you remember that little bitty kitchen project I started ohhhhh…five months ago? With the help of some free Amex points, I was able to take the simple changes I had planned for the space and amp them up just a tad. :)

Well, the summer-o-lazy hit, and then the closer we got to fall, the more obsessed I got with decluttering, so the kitchen has had very little DIY action lately. I’m finally getting the urge to get it finished up – especially since there’s not really that much left to do anyway.

I do have one thing I’m stuck on though – our window treatment-less windows. My plan has always been to redo the no sew roman shades I had up before – I absolutely LOVED them, but the fabric was a bit heavy for the updates I made to the kitchen.

But the further I got into the changes to this space, the less I wanted to cover the windows again!

I started the window redos by reinstalling molding around the windows. I had done this once before a couple of years ago, but they never looked quite right because I never painted everything out white:

I ended up stealing that molding for a family room wainscoting project a year or so ago, so they were trimless again for some time. Nothing is safe with me – I’ll pull it right off the wall if it will save me some cash.  :)

This time, I installed the trim again, using this technique – the molding is just the right width and matches up with our window sills perfectly:

I painted out everything in a glossy white paint, to give the illusion of window casings:

It’s the thrifty man’s version of beautiful molding around the windows. :) Not nearly as thick as I’d like, but I do love the result!

My main mission with this kitchen redo was to brighten up the space. It was never really dark and dreary, but I was craving a change after six years. My original plan was to paint our bay window area an apple green to go with the accent color in the room.

But we all know how the apple green went. :) NOT GOOD. Bad. Very, very bad.

So I decided to just paint the whole area out in the wall color that goes throughout our great room – Sisal from Ralph Lauren. BEST. color. ever. (Home Depot doesn’t carry the RL line anymore, but I think they can still find the formula for it! I get it matched to Behr paint.)

It brightened up the space so much, and I swear it made the area feel more spacious too!

The before, with the olive green bay window:

The after, with the Sisal walls, trimmed out windows and a few other new additions:

But here comes the dilemma – I started making new window treatments a couple of months ago and they were a colossal FAIL. In the end, I think it was the fabric I chose. It was gorgeous, but too bland for the space. There wasn’t enough contrast -- everything was blending together.

And now that we’ve lived without treatments in this space, I have to say…I’m quite loving it!

FOR SHAME, I know! I’m usually a decorating, window treating, cover those windows, fanatic!!

But with the changes, this:

Now looks like this:

I mean, look at all that beautiful natural light! (I know, the before pic was taken at night, but just nod your head and agree with me.)  :)

Oh yeah, and the unplanted basil, honkin’ cat water bowl (with a fountain, GAH) and Halloween stickies on the window are the perfect touch. I know you’re jealous.

When I redid our backsplash, I took the beadboard up high around the window over the sink, and I absolutely love how it looks with the trim around the window:

On a side note -- since all our other herbs died, I added a little Halloween to the sill by filling my Ball jars with candy corn:

And sticking a little orange LED candle in each one:

Adorable. And I don’t like candy corn…so absolutely ZERO temptation. That is what I’m talkin’ about.

Anyhoo…I can’t believe it, but I don’t want to cover those windows! Is that crazy? Good LORD, is that even allowed?? Will the decorating police come and find me?

When we moved in, I put treatments up thinking I would close them often, but we’ve found little need to do that. Because of the way our house is situated, we don’t really need them for privacy.

I do think a bamboo roman shade would look pretty fab above that kitchen sink – especially up against all that white trim. But the bay windows are super skinny, so finding matching shades for those would be hard. (And expensive.)

So what do you think? Cover my nekked windows? Leave them alone? Just do a little somethin’ somethin’?

Are you a window treatment fool like me? Or do you prefer your windows completely uncovered? I think I may have crossed over. :)

 

Thanks to this week’s sponsor!

Bamboo or blinds?

The week after we moved into our house more than six years ago, my awesome Dad came by one day and helped install two-inch faux blinds on pretty much every. single. window. I mean, there’s only so long you can live with sheets over the windows, right?  :)

But over the past few years, I have fallen in love with the warmth and texture of bamboo roman shades. And I have now replaced every single blind that my Dad hung for us. (Insert sorry-Dad-I-love-you-so-much face here.)

It’s taken about THREE years, but I was trying to be not spend all that cash to replace every one of them at once, delay my gratification, be mature, WHATEVER. :)

I get questions about our bamboo shades all of the time, so I figured I would address them all in one post. There a pros and cons to these beauties.

One of the pros is the ease of installation. I’m not kidding when I say this – if you know how to use a drill, you can install one in about five minutes.

You just measure how far out from the window you want the shades to hang (make sure it’s the same for both sides), then screw them in:

My handy dandy dollar spot pencils from Target were the perfect measuring stick! :) You shouldn’t need to use anchors, since there are usually studs framing out the window where the brackets go in. If you’re in doubt, use a stud finder or drill a test hole to see what’s up in there.

You can see, I don’t screw into each hole in the bracket – there’s just no need to. But if you are a just for good measure kind of person, go for it! :)

(If you do need anchors, you’ll want to mark the holes first, then install the anchors, then screw the bracket in.)

After the two brackets are installed, all you do is slip the shade up into place, then secure it with the wing nuts:

If you are installing these on your own, you may need to perform some fun stunts like holding the shade up with your head while you screw in the wing nuts. :)

I have one of these handy dandy wrappy things by each window, behind the drapes:

I like having the cords wound up for safety reasons. (Now most of these shades come with tools to safely keep the cords out of the way.)

Our living room had the last set of blinds to replace, and I worked on them last weekend. For years we had the blinds and some ironwork hanging in the windows:

I saw the idea for the ironwork on Rate My Space and loved it, so I recreated it myself with some clearanced iron snowflakes from Pier 1. I spray painted them black, and for years tried to convince myself that they didn’t look like snowflakes.

Well. They did. :)

I cut down the snowflakes ironwork snowflakes last week (they were hung with fishing wire) and installed the new bamboo shades:

(Sorry so dark -- it went from sunny and beautiful to overcast with zero light in the two seconds it took for me to get to the room and take the picture. Awesome.)

I have three different colors of these shades throughout our house, but this lighter, natural tone is on most of the windows:

I love, love, LOVE all of the varying colors and tones of the wood.

Here’s a before shot of our dining room with the blinds:

Here’s the shot with the dark bamboo shades installed:

OK, OK, I know the paint color, window treatments, light fixture, all that goodness kind of transforms the room just a teeeeeny bit, but I think the shades warm it up quite a bit as well. :)

LURVE!!

Let me be clear, I love two inch white blinds. I think they are classic and traditional and all things ME. But once the first set of bamboo went up, I was hooked.

The Bub’s nursery had blinds up for years, which looked fantastic with all of the white molding:

But the natural look of the bamboo shades in his big boy room just floats. my. boat:

Speaking of the Bub’s room – the only reason I hesitated with bamboo shades at first was the whole privacy and light issue. I’m a Mom, and any Mom knows the kiddo’s bedroom needs to stay nice and dark and cozy as long as possible during naptime and in the wee hours of the morning. And it needs to block the blinding sun that comes in at 9 p.m. in the summer. ;)

Our son’s favorite line at bedtime for the last three months:

“But it’s not dark out!!”

Smarty.

Anyhoo, there’s two things I’ve found to help with these issues. One is finding a really tightly woven shade, like those in our bedroom:

 

The are so dense, you can barely see the light coming in, even on the brightest mornings. Awwwwww yeah baby! I am a sleeper, so bright summer mornings are the bane of my existence. All bright and cheery and whatev…I’m trying to sleep!

:)

Another way to keep light out is to install a privacy shade behind the bamboo shade:

The only place I’ve found these is Lowe’s, and they sell them for all different sized shades. They are pretty easy to attach – you just lay them on the back of the shade, Velcro them to the top, then attach them using these plastic jobbies:

I am oh-so-technical today. ;)

I’ve installed these on a few of our windows and they do the trick. The privacy shades are about $22 for our size windows, but some are less, some are more.

These liners will also help prevent an issue we’ve had with the bamboo shades in the playroom:

Do you see the stripes from the sun? :) Because these don’t offer a ton of privacy, they are pulled up most of the time and the sun has bleached them out.

These were the cheapest I’ve found, and you can see why. :) I got this set at Target, and they were SO inexpensive – I think about $10 each?

My very favorite set of bamboo shades is in our family room. I got them from Target a couple years ago:

You can see a hint of the warming up I’m working on in here – I’m obsessed with it, I love it so very much. Gleeeee! More on that soon. :)

Here’s how the blinds looked in that room:

And the after, with all of their lovely texture and warmth:

They work for all seasons – in the warmer months, the natural tones work perfectly. In the cooler months they just ooooze cozy. Yum.

I’ve bought our shades from three stores over the years – Home Depot (they clearance them out a couple times a year), Lowe’s (they sell the privacy liners as well), and Target. I’m bumming because I can’t find them at our Target store anymore, and they had the prettiest color I’ve found (in the family room above). For the most part they run about $30 to $35.

The pros to bamboo shades:

• - They look great! (Oh wait, I said that. About 50 times.)
• - With a tightly woven shade, combined with a liner, they let way less sun in a room (even our tightly closed blinds still let light through, turned either up or down.)
• - Bamboo shades are less expensive than the faux (two inch) blinds, and WAY cheaper than the real wood blinds. :)
• - They are much easier to clean! No slats covered with dust!

The cons:

• - Blinds provide better privacy.
• - There’s no “in between” with bamboo shades -- with blinds you can open the slats just a bit and control the amount of light. I found I was a wide open or shut kind of person anyway – I either had the blinds pulled all the way up or down.
• - I imagine, over time and without a liner, the bamboo will become brittle from sun exposure. I don’t know this for sure though – I’ve had some of ours for about three years and haven’t had any issues with this.

I hope that answers all of your questions about the lovely bamboo beauties. :) Again, I got nothin’ against the purdy two inch blinds – it was just love at first installation of bamboo shades for me.  ;)

So do you do bamboo? Or the classic blinds? Skinny slats or fat slats? Real or faux? Or are you a let it all hang out there person and you don’t cover your windows at all?

You nekked window folks do know people look in your windows as they drive by to see what your house looks like inside, right? Hmmm…maybe that’s just me. ;)

While we’re looking at the windows around our house, let’s check out the view:

Oh yeah, that’s right, you can’t see outside, cause it’s like walking around in a freaking pool out there. A 98 degree pool. And you’re surprised I’m ready for fall?? :)

P.S. I believe I said “texture,” “warmth” and “shades” about 314 times. Go ahead and count.

P.P.S. “Wrappy” is not in spell check. How is this possible?