Window Treatment

One of the first things on my apartment transformation list was to do something about the curtains in our bedroom.

The fabric is actually very nice, but it was dark and heavy feeling, especially with the dark red wall to wall carpet in the room.  The previous tenant must have felt the same way because he removed the panel of fabric hanging behind the bed.  He actually left it wadded up on top of the wardrobe, in case you were wondering what that was in the picture.  As you can imagine we opted not to put that fabric back up!

So what to do about the curtains?  My initial thought was to hopefully replace them with an inexpensive find. Two problems.  Number One, finding ready made drapes that were long enough, and number two, even if I did find them, inexpensive or not, they still cost money. Spending a little here and there to spruce up our new digs is ok, but I have to consider carefully each purchase.  Do I really need it, and can I take it with us on our next move.

After a lot of thought and a little pouting we decided new drapes were not in the cards.  But that still left me with the problem of dark red drapes that I didn't want to wake up to every morning!  The solution?  Turn them inside out.  The lining of the drapes is simple and neutral, not too far off from what I would have replaced them with if that's the way we would have gone.  Here is a picture of Adam up on a ladder turning the drapes around.

During the process we decided the windows needed cleaning.  And while we were at it we decided to wash the white sheers as well.  What I'm about to show you may just freak you out a bit.  It gives me the creeps just looking back at these photos.  Here are a few photos I snapped during the cleaning process.  As I promised a few weeks back I plan on sharing the good, bad, and even the ugly.  So here is the bad and the ugly.

Here is another little doozie for ya'.  A side by side comparison of the sheers we took down and washed.   The clean one is obviously on the left!  No photoshop was used to alter this photograph.

After both sheers were washed, we rehung them and turned the drapes inside out.  We did have to rehang the valance, which I'm not a fan of, but I am hoping to come up with a creative fix for that as well.  So here is what it looks like now.

If I ever get around to it and can figure out an inexpensive way to create a new valance this is what I'm thinking about.