It's Curtains for you!

I finally finished the new curtains for the new room.

Anybody know a good trick for taking a picture of a window without this happening?

Until now, we have made do with the curtains from Ella's old room in Washington, but this room has two windows and with only one panel per window, the curtains were about three inches shy of closing.



With the kids now sharing the room and the days getting longer, I wanted to block as much of the morning sun as possible from this East-facing room.  I didn't make a tutorial for these because I had no plan {of course, I rarely have a well-thought-out plan}.  Besides, these are just too simple!  They're merely stripes of different fabrics.

I used light-blocking curtain lining fabric for the top half {leftover from other curtains}, attached the bright floral panel underneath {my central fabric on which I'm basing the room's colors},

and ended with some leftover gold striped fabric that I upholstered these chairs in about thirteen years ago.

Those chairs have since been updated to this fabric:

I have stated before that I am a purger, but fabric is one of those things I believe in hanging on to, as long as you still love it.  I especially hang on to my home decor fabric remnants because they can be expensive!  My rule of thumb is that if there is enough to make a pillow and I still like it, I keep it. 

I had planned to put a teal fabric on the bottom, but once I got to that point, I decided it was too bright, so I scavenged around my stash and found this and I think it's much better.  The teal will find it's way to another spot.

Now, the curtains aren't actually complete.  I need to make tie-backs.  I made the rod pocket pretty large for easy sliding because I plan on closing them each night, but because the fabric is so stiff, they won't stay open well without help and the room looks dark.  So, tie-backs are coming, but Ella is going to help me with them, so they may be the last thing done. :)  I might also add more trim {there's a gold ribbon between the floral and stripe right now}, but will wait on that for other elements of the room first.

Tomorrow I hope to show you the room as it is now.  I still have lots of organization to work on.  Moving two kids in together without it looking like mass chaos is quite a trick.  I'll let you know if I master it....

So, as things stand on my to-do list for this room:

- Make new curtains with black-out lining that cover the windows completely {they get the morning sun}.

- Redo the embroidery hoops on the wall in a creative way.

- Find some cheap frames and paint them to match, filling them with either pictures of the kids or their artwork.

- Make built-in bookshelves for either side of the closet doors {a big project, but one I think is necessary}.

- Buy bunk beds.

- Find some bedding for Jack.

- Introduce Jack to a big boy bed and get him to stay in it {this was actually supremely easy with Ella, but Jack is his own little self and I'm not holding my breath that he'll be as easy}.

- Repaint the table and chairs in there.

- Make more seating - details to follow.

- Anything else I haven't thought of.

We're making headway!