Hellooo blogging world. I am returning with my latest apartment project: our living room. It will be a continuous project over the next few months, but this week I was able to knock out step 1. Here is a little preview:
For some reason California owners have an OBSESSION with vertical blinds. You are very hard pressed to find a rental that does not sport these on at least one window, and we are so blessed as to have them sprawl across our entire living room. While I really cannot stand them, the thought of removing them, paying for enough fabric to span the wall, and then possibly returning them to the window at the end of our lease makes removing them impractical to me. In an effort to soften our white walls and distract the eye from the hideousness that is all things vertical blinds, I crafted the plan to hang two static panels on either side of the window in an effort to save money and time. After spending a good amount of time one day looking through fabrics at my favorite, fabric.com, I found something! It actually wasn't my first choice (which was a blue and white ikat), but I still really like it. I thought it played on all of the woods, greens, and gold we have going on with our existing stuff and gives off a swedish cottage feel.
Here is our living room before the panels. Yes, I am aware that we have far too much furniture for this small space, but it is what we need right now and works well for us. I plan on swapping out that side table in between the two chairs for a small round one, changing out the lamp, adding ivory velvet throw pillows to the iron chairs and couch, possibly taking down that large painting and putting up another bookshelf, refinishing the coffee table (high gloss navy?) and finally swapping out the rug for a more transitional zebra cow hide. Ideally I would probably get rid of the two chairs and side table all together and just have one comfy chair as a reading nook, but it's just not a priority right now financially when there are plane tickets to be bought, places to see, and weddings to attend. Feel free to chime in if you have any other thoughts or suggestions on aforementioned plan.
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| Before: Right side of the living room |
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| Before: Left side of the living room |
And HERE is the fabric I chose! Coincidentally, I think if styled correctly this fabric would look great in a girl's nursery. Just saying.
Now I knew two things were non-negotiable. I wanted the curtains to hang from floor to ceiling, and I wouldn't be using a curtain rod (because I would likely have to have one custom made - plus I already had the materials on hand that I needed to hang them from clips). This meant I would need to order 6 yards of fabric because I didn't want to hang the fabric with the print going horizontally. If I hung the fabric with the design horizontal, I would have only needed to order 4 yards because the fabric comes in 54'' width...make sense? No? Doesn't matter. I devised a plan to hang the curtains from hooks in the ceiling and curtain clips like so:
I know it's not ideal, but this is my first time to make floor to ceiling curtains. Maybe one day I will be able to weight, line, hem, yada yada and make them look professional. One step at a time!
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| Bill being a good tall samaritan |
And here is a side by side before and after for your viewing pleasure:
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| Before |
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| After |
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| Before |
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| After |
Cozies us up a little eh? I still need to hem the things on all edges, but honestly they will probably hang like that for a whiiiiile. What do y'all think? Can I get away with hanging strips of fabric from the ceiling and calling them curtains? :)
