Friday, March 12, 2010

Ultimate mistreatments

I was feeling particularly wealthy a few weeks ago and bought some beautiful Pottery Barn curtains for the living room. They were cardinal red and went floor to ceiling. They were really, really beautiful...on someone else's windows. They looked terrible in my living room. The color was really bad, they blocked out too much light, they made the room look too fussy, it was just all wrong. Which I suppose serves me right for spending $50 a PANEL for curtains. With a heavy heart, I sent them back to Pottery Barn, completely distraught. I mean, if Pottery Barn can't solve my window problem, what can?

I looked into The Nester's window mistreatments, which looked easy enough, were budget friendly, and look great in her house. I hesitated though, I was really put off by the whole Pottery Barn curtain mishap, and I really just don't like curtains all that much. I just needed some time to think about my options, so I did what I do best and went shopping.

We were strolling through the antique mall and these 2 ugly decrepit boards caught my attention. The tag said that they were salvaged from a barn in Kentucky and they were $7 each! They even had caked on mud on them. Hubs thought I was a little nuts when I swooned over them, but I just didn't care. I loved the look, they were so authentic and rustic, I knew I had to have them. Here's where they live now.
I didn't even clean off the mud or try to make them the same size. I really loved the texture of the boards and just thought it was a pretty cool alternative to curtains. Now, I know that I'm breaking all the rules by not putting up curtains, but I don't care. As a general rule I don't really like curtains on my windows. I really like light, and these are the only two windows in this room (and it's a pretty big room). I plan on replacing the yucky little plastic blinds with white wooden blinds, but I just haven't yet. If I could, I'd leave the windows empty, but these face the street, so for privacy, we really need something. The only thing that I don't like about my little boards is that they don't bring the same kind of texture as curtains. I'm hoping to solve this by running tongue and groove boards over the whole wall. It comes in a sheet, kinda like beadboard, only the planks are bigger. Hubs says that's the strangest and most ridiculous thing he's ever heard, "Why would you cover up perfectly good walls?". I think I just haven't convinced him enough yet. Give me time, I will!

So what do you think? Too out there? Do I still need curtains?

2 comments:

Shana said...

I don't think you need curtains. But I do think it's going to look even better with the wood blinds. I have wood blinds in my living room and master bedroom, no curtains or valence of any type, and I love them. For texture, you could do a "DIY" fabric covered canvas for the wall. That's my next project... I think.

Shana said...

Also... I got my wood blinds at Ikea for about 1/10 of what they were even at Home Depot and Lowes. Luckily, I was able to use the size they had and didn't need a custom size. To work with the size, I mounted them outside of the window instead of inside. Still looks good, and way better than the plastic ones I had up previously.