A Curtain Conundrum

Hello, my name is Monica and I’m a stageaholic. Ever since I was a little girl I’ve been “staging” without even knowing it. How many 10 yr olds do you know that rearrange the furniture in their room every few months for a “fresh look”? I also daydreamed on my back porch about staging our backyard instead of playing like a normal child. What can I say, I love this stuff! Even the best stagers have their off days though. Yesterday was one of those days for me.

Let’s rewind to the beginning. For the past several months since we repainted our living room, I have been dreaming about the perfect curtains to frame the 3 large windows in our living and dining rooms. The transformation from deep mustard yellow to light gray walls was dramatic, but it teetered on feeling industrial and cold. Below is a paint swatch of the color to give you an idea, it’s Nimbus by Benjamin Moore. For some reason, I had faux silk chocolate brown curtains in mind like the ones below (except they would be floor-to-ceiling length to give the illusion of more height with our 8′ ceilings like I wrote about in this post).This “stager’s intuition” if you will has been both a blessing and a curse. Once I have in mind what I want, I get tunnel vision and no other options exist. This can be helpful when shopping because I know exactly what I’m looking for. However, it can also limit me design-wise since I’m no longer open to any other possibilities. My left brain takes over to “hunt, buy and drag back” my kill item while the creative juices in my right brain are pushed to the wayside. I digress, so back to yesterday. I had read a recent blog post about how to DIY curtains without using a sewing machine which was right up my ally. I was bound and determined to buy faux silk fabric and have my dream curtains hanging by the end of the day. I even risked my life by driving to Hancock Fabrics in a wind storm (seriously, 20-30 mph winds with 40 mph gusts – it was a mix between The Wizard of Oz and Twister minus the flying cow)!

I finally made it there only to discover that the fabric I wanted was $17.99/yd – holy crow (for all you Bella fans out there)! I had done all the measurements before leaving the house – 3 windows/2 panels each/8 ft x 6 panels = 48 ft/3 = 16 yds x 17.99 = ~$300! I know curtain panels are expensive to buy at the store, but $50/panel seemed more than ridiculous. That was even before buying curtain rods and rings, so I was stumped. I left the dream killer fabric store with my head held low and no fabric in hand.

Something you may or may not know about me is that I am not a good “hunter” – i.e. digging for deals at T.J.Maxx is one of my least favorite things to do. I’m a “do a 5 minute walk-through and know if there’s anything I like” kind of gal. I realize that there MAY be other fabric stores in the tiny city of Memphis, but I’d rather find what I’m looking for at the first one (living in a dream world, I know).

So my curtain conundrum lingers on. Any readers out there have any fabric store or online suggestions? Have you ever run into a decorating brick wall? Any DIY curtain suggestions that could help a girl out?

Paint swatch image found here, curtains found here, and tunnel found here.