August goal 4-YAHOO!

Phewf! I was starting to get embarassed about my August goals..thinking the only shoo-in (weird word when typed!) was #9. Fortunately, however, we've made a bit of progress otherwise.

I picked up some Ikea Merete drapes and some Lummig rods last week and we finally got around to getting them up last night. Yay!

So, just so you understand what exactly we were dealing with, not to mention the relative "urgency" (obviously not really urgent) of improving on our ghetto window covers, here are the before pictures, which have been exactly like this since January 30:
Please note 2 different throws flanking the bed. Although they match each other fairly well, they are certainly different (1 fleece, 1 cotton) and certainly not drapes. You will also note 1 (one) set of drapes hung on 2 (two) separate large windows, clearly way too short to even attempt to pass as actual drapes. All 4 of these coverings were being held up with miscellaneous nails and tacks. Lovely, non?

It's amazing what you learn to live with, and what your eyes and mind just accept. Looking at them in the photos, I can't believe we didn't change these immediately and I can't believe we showed anyone this room after 6 months of them looking like this.

Anyway, despite their former coverings, they really are gorgeous windows that deserve to be showed off. Here they are sans coverings and with all our new drape stuff spread out (not to mention a curious feline checking out what all the fuss is about):
Unfortunately you can't tell with these photos, but the lighting is phenomenal with no drapes, or if we had been able-open drapes. Seriously it's so open and light in there we had to just sit back for a moment to enjoy what we had no idea we were missing.

So after washing, drying, measuring and iron-hemming them, we hung them all up. Which, unlike our nailed-in-place, ghetto previous coverings, can be opened to let all that gorgeous light in (when it's not raining during this crummy "summer"):
Honestly, though once they were up I was kinda disappointed. Obviously INFINITELY better than the before, but they just weren't what I was hoping for. I guess I was so stuck on getting drapes with grommets/eyelets, I didn't consider that I may have preferred something a little softer, like these (which, of course, happen to be significantly cheaper): Also, I love him, but hubs hung the rods so we couldn't have the drapes wider than the window frame. I'm going to play around with them tonight to see if I can put a grommet on either side of the support to remedy that rather than have him re-do them all though.

And as a final kicker, they're so flippin' long! After washing and drying them (in order to account for shrinkage, heh heh) I measured one, assuming they'd all have shrunk the same amount and hung them. Wishful thinking on my part I guess, because some of them were perfect, but some of them look like this:
Which isn't working for me. So, I'll have to get in there tonight and re-hem them and measure them each individually...ugh. Oh well, better to get it right in 2 nights than adjust to another set of blinds that don't measure up (pun intended).

Still much better though, don't you think? And certainly overdue.