Or a post also know as the story of a girl who takes five+ trips…
Curtain Updates
Our 112-year-old house comes with a fair number of unusual quirks. One of which is the windows. We have huge windows.
With our 9 foot ceilings, and 8 inch moldings, the length from the floor to the top of the window frames is about 89 inches. That makes it hard to fit store-bought curtains for the most part. Except at Ikea, which has been my curtain candy shop. And I see Target has some 95 inchers too. Thank goodness.
One of my home goals this year was to address the mostly nekked windows in our house. Most of the rooms have the former owner’s metal or plastic blinds on them. A problem I couldn’t wait to remedy.
I’ve been focused on the living room windows which I showed you here. I was on a long hunt for curtains so I could sew on some additional fabric and trim that I picked up. I knew I had to do that since no normal curtains fit and I wasn’t about to make my own.
After my long hunt I finally found what I could live with. Not 100% what I set out for but I was willing to give them a try. And then they sat in our living room for about 3 months. I also found a curtain rod, same deal. All these projects just wait for me to get to them!
Lo and behold one of the curtain panels that I searched for months for, went to the store 5 times just to find, was finally what I wanted was sewn wrong. I opened one panel once I put the rod up to see what it looked like. Of only I had opened the other package I would have know it was sewn wrong.
Grrr!
You can kind of see it in this photos {which is what 84 inch panels look like in my house, too short by a lot} the middle fabric is sewn wrong and it doesn’t hang right or line up.
Oh it gets better.
I go to the store to exchange my wrongly sewn panel and guess what? They’ve discontinued them. There are no more available.
These curtains are going to kill me!
Sigh.
Yea, so I can’t keep them, I have to sew other fabric to them anyway and it’s just not going to work.
I wasn’t 100% in love with the rod pocket top anyway. I didn’t want them since they slide down the rod and I know you can pin it all and but I just wasn’t feeling it.
The fabric is awesome, just what I wanted. Silk (well faux silk, the real ones are $100 each!) with a middle insulating panel and a lining.
Pure white too. That was hard enough to find.
But down they came.
The good news? The 346 foot long curtain rod is up at least and looks pretty smashing. That was a minor feat.
Do you know what it’s like to drill into 112 year old wood under plaster? I don’t have the guns for that! I mean muscles, you know, it’s hard! I’m up on the ladder trying to hold up the drill. I’m about to swear at the wall. It is not pretty let me tell you.
The lifelong curtain dilemma ….. to be continued!
Happy Friday 🙂
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Ugggh I can totally empathize with your curtain problems. At least your plaster looks to be in better shape than ours!
We have THE same house! 🙂
I’ve been on the same frustrating curtain hunt for a year. We finally lucked out at Boscovs…
http://www.boscovs.com/StoreFrontWeb/Product.bos?type=Product&itemNumber=105809
We got these curtains- they are white/faux silk and 95inches. They look great on ring/clips instead of using the pocket.
Drilling into the plaster- that was another story! It took super glue and a lot of creativity to keep the rods in the wall. 🙂
Good luck! Thank you for your great blog- I love comparing our similar homes and learning from you!
-Kate
When I saw the first picture, I spent about a minute thinking how gorgeous that window is and how I’d like to do that to a couple of my windows. So I was quite surprised to scroll down and see that you want to cover it up– and with sheer curtains, no less. Why do you need curtains if you’re not even trying to block out light? I get the sense you have your heart set on curtains but, wow, it’s a huge step back. I really think you should reconsider and either replace the current sheers on the bottom of the window with a cool fabric or with blinds, perhaps wood blinds stained the same color as the moulding.– Jen
Hey you know Target has 95” off the shelf. Some of them are backtabbed. I just used some for a client that didn’t have a lot of money to spend in a condo at the Parkway. I think it was $39/panel, which is cheap considering.
Oh my gosh, I feel your pain! Yes, I know the struggles of drilling into old wood/horse hair plaster/lathe. UGH! I can only get through it with a few (read: many) curse words as well. So a HUGE congrats on the awesome looking rod. And best of luck on the curtain front. 🙂
Bummer – I feel your pain, too! I ended up adding length to my panels with panel inserts in two colours that complimented the rest of our bedroom decor. But I wasn’t fighting improperly sewn panels to start with, just discontinued stock, so I guess I was lucky they worked out okay. Have you ever checked Jysk online? They sell 95″ panels as well, and at a good price… Looking forward to the continued part!!!
Oh man, I would be super bummed too! Although we’re no strangers to curtain frustration either. 😉 Good work getting that super long rod hung!
We have the same tall windows in our 1889 house. Unfortunately one of the previous owners ripped out all but one (the little square window at the bottom of the stairway) of the original windows in our house and replaced them with WHITE VINYL (ugh!). This completely ruined the character of the windows themselves, but I still have the beautiful unpainted trim. What I did was purchase real wood blinds in the color that matched my trim. I still get the beauty of the trim, but no white windows. A world of difference.