Behind Curtain Number One….

For those of you who don’t know, I married for the first time at age 37 to a man who was (so very) worth the wait.  But since we were both “older” (although he IS 5 years younger than I am…yes, I’m a little bit of a Cougar…MEOW) we had both lived on our own for some time when we merged households.  Obviously, we both had developed our individual styles & opinions when it comes to decorating and while I do jokingly say that “my husband isn’t high maintenance but he DOES have a strong opinion”,  I also don’t pull the “but honey, I’m a professional” card because I really try to respect the fact that this home is BOTH of ours and design it to ensure he loves it too.

So we have been in our house for three and a half years and I’ve been gently nudging the hubs towards curtains in our family room.  His response?  ”I hate curtains.”  Urgh.  So I until recently, I would do a mental head slap and move on to something else that would cause less dissention.  But when I recently found out WHY he hates curtains, I knew I could find a way to placate both of us.  WHOOP WHOOP!  A little spousal detective work determined that he didn’t want the light blocked from the windows or to feel like he was being “crowded” in the room.  Crowded?  I call it cozy.  But alas, I was onto finding a solution that would make us both happy:  LINEN WINDOW PANELS.  We use linen panels in some of our staging projects because they can block an ugly window or it’s view while still allowing light into the property (because sunshine sells), I thought FOR SHORE my hubs would be able to live with them.  These are the original ones I fell in love with:

West Elm Ikat Ogee Linen Window Panel

First glance at these and the hubs gave me an incredulous look – as if I were asking him whether he wanted to visit Venus or Mars this weekend…and stay for a decade.  Okay, back to the drawing board and lo and behold, I found some with more of a “muted” style on sale for $34 a panel!  And since we needed 12 panels, I went ahead and ordered them without even showing the hubs.  Boy, was I feeling crazy!  Because they were non-refundable due to the fact that they were discontinued….  

So when the curtains arrived, I thought I’d just acclimate the hubs slowly…and thumb-tack them to the wall.

High Design

Fancy Side View

Professional Installation, eh?

Yes, if you look closely, you can see the thumb-tack in the above photo but hey, I was improvising and it’s not like I’d do the same thing in a client’s house.  Weeelllll…if they had a spouse who needed to be baby-stepped into the idea of hanging curtains, maybe I would.  Because IT WORKED!  We left those curtains thumb-tacked up for – I kid you not – maybe 6 weeks?  And since I didn’t hear any grumbling during that time, I took it upon myself to hang them while the hubs was out of town for a week earlier this month.  The story of hanging the curtains is a whole other post that maybe I’ll share AFTER it is determined whether or not the battle wounds will leave a scar….  In the meantime, here are the resulting “after” shots of what I’m definitely in loooove with.  At least for now anyway…keep in mind I’m breaking in the design savvy of my hubs and have Plans for our future window dressings.  Yes, with a capital “P”.  heh heh.

Curtains. AFTER!

Close Up

Sunshine Stays!

Fancy Side View - AFTER

So there ya have it.  After three and a half years, I finally have some window treatments that aren’t JUST functional (as are the blinds).  I’m not sure if the hubs actually likes them or if he’s just so beat down that he’s not even mentioning his opinion….