Just a 46-year-old mom of 2 in Northern California. My kids are Monkey Monkey(MM) and Drama Llama (DL). I am married to Monkey Hubby (MH). Well, it only took 7 years...
My parents "gave" me their grand piano when we moved into our large home (around the same time my sister moved to the east coast). They didn't use it, they weren't going to ship it to my sister (we looked into shipping my old upright to her - EXPENSIVE - more than it cost anyway). So I won. I still consider it my parent's piano anyway. When I mentioned in some forum thread I had no significant assets besides cars, the thought did cross my mind, and it quickly flitted out. Eh, it's not mine - I would certainly never sell it.
Anyway, we have a very large window in the living room. All the windows had blinds installed by the builder before we moved in, but there is a crescent shaped window over the main window, which has no blinds. From day one I had worried about sunlight damaging the piano. Thing is we should have taken care of that when we were both working - doh.
I priced long drapes that would just cover all the windowage - and back then I couldn't find much. I remember finding drapes in the $250 range or thinking we would have to order custom draper. So I put it on the back burner. Just couldn't quite squeeze in the budget. Or maybe I just couldn't stomach the price.
As we started our mid-term savings fund back up this year that is one of the first things I had in mind, but I wanted to get some decent cash in there for more pressing things first.
We've been here almost 7 years. Luckily the dual paned windows seem to have not taken their toll on the piano, but still, for the long run, I am sure it is better off completely out of the sunlight. We also looked into getting treatment for that window and such. It's just not a priority at all. Don't ask me why - it really should be. It's not even MY piano.
So yesterday I was perusing thermal drapes for the family room (where we spend most of our time). I was a little frustrated because I think I found decent drapes, but the color I wanted was out of stock. This may take a while.
But I saw JCPenny was having a giant drape sale and had a lot of insulated drapes. So I was perusing their website.
& then I saw them. My jaw dropped - $70 (50% off) for the most perfect drapes for the living room. They were for floor-to-ceiling drapes. I thought, "maybe those will fit." The window is not floor-to-ceiling, but our ceilings are 10-foot-high. They would be if we had 8-foot ceilings.
I already had the tape measure out so gave it a measure.
The window in there is actually 4 windows separated by a sliver of wall. 2 of the drape panels were long enough and wide enough to cover the entire windows, but the 2 drapes together would not be wide enough to meet in the middle. Some wall would show in the middle.
I am not sure how I felt about that. I told dh, "you know, it just might look stupid." My bubble burst a bit.
Of course, dh, the wise one, said, "Why don't you get 3 panels?"
Hmmmm. Because it would cost almost $250!!!! For drapes!!!!!
We decided to go for it because they are easy to return in store. We are going to hope 2 works, but we'll have 3 just in case. & if they look hideous in person - yeah - I am going to be very particular for this large of a purchase, for sure.
I still struggled with this purchase though. I told dh, "you know I have been thinking about this for almost 7 years. This is hardly rash. But I don't think now is necessarily the time to buy $250 drapes."
So dh was very sweet. He asked me about my allowance, if I had updated our balances lately. I pretty much said no, hadn't updated because I hadn't bought anything in a while - neither has he. I am sure I have $250 in my allowance to spare. The thought hadn't crossed my mind. I mean, probably because they are a household item. But I will probably deduct whatever we spend over $100 or so from my allowance because they are completely unnecessary (we could find something cheaper to do the job). So anyway, I Was actually thankful he brought up the allowance angle - suddenly it made a little more sense as a purchase.
& so, there I was shopping for thermal drapes, and I ended up with luxurious black and gold drapes (not thermal) for the living room.
So there you have it, I will post pictures when I get them up!!!!!
I am excited!
(People would pay $500 for these things? Full price? Yeesh. The picture actually showed 3 panels).
Nope, could not afford to drape the whole house. Most of our drapes are home made. & most of our windows are drape-less.
Well, I am still drape shopping for the family room - for the thermals. These windows are weird sized too. *sigh* Maybe I'll find the perfect drapes in another 7 years or something.
But yeah - I saw a lot more affordable things to cover our large windows, that I hadn't seen before. That is nice - I guess so many people have been buying these monstrosity of houses the last 5 years or so. We have a lot of issue with this house. We love it, but it did go against our frugal nature to buy a house with so many odd shaped windows. Just not a lot of practicality in this house, in a lot of ways. Though the sad thing was we bought it because it was just about the most practical new house we could find. But far from perfect, for sure. I mean, if this is as good as it gets. Pfffft.
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Speaking of the house, the weather has cooled considerably (40s overnight). It's getting on the verge of winterish. Ugh. I mean, it doesn't get below 30 here. Usually anyway.
House has settled at 71 degrees.
I think I have to go searching for slippers. My feet are cold. & we have to start dragging out the warmer clothes now that the inside of the house dropped below 80 degrees.
But no heat yet.
My hope for the thermal drapes is to significantly decrease heat usage, actually. There is a lot of the time the the thermostats says 68 but there is just more of a chill in the air. So I am hoping the drapes help take care of the chill.
New Drapes
October 11th, 2008 at 01:34 pm
October 11th, 2008 at 03:18 pm 1223738299
The two sliders in the livingroom during the spring/summer are blocked by our almost 50 year old Japanese Maple tree, but in the winter when the leaves drop our back fence neighbors could see in if they wanted maybe.... but one house is empty and has been since the little old lady moved down to live near her son and they decided to just keep the house and the other neighbor would also have to look around our shed to see into our sliders, so I don't much worry about drapes. DH says he would like them, but I am so afraid to make a mistake!
So I completely understand you having a drapeless house. We were told when we replaced our windows the dual panes blocked almost all the sun damage potential, but we had ours tinted with something, you can't see the tint though.
It froze up here last night and DH took our furnace filters out to wash at the car wash (they are the kind you clean, not replace).
October 11th, 2008 at 04:54 pm 1223744069
We aren't picky and had no idea what we were doing, so we went and scouted drapes at a few places. The hardest part was figuring out how to cover the section of three windows in a row, with no room in between them to bracket anything. I still think the ones we got are a little short, but maybe they will work perfectly for our next home!
October 11th, 2008 at 07:02 pm 1223751772
But we are going out to buy 3M thermal window plastic today! Not as pretty as drapes, and I can't bear it in the LR, but it's ok in some rooms.
October 11th, 2008 at 09:03 pm 1223759007
My place is very private and set back off the road, so i don't worry about who could see in.
One thing i hadn't realized til a year ago when i bought floor to ceiling drapes for my bedroom is what a great improvement they are and the touch of elegance they add to any room. My bedroom windows are NOT floor to ceiling, but having the drapes extend past the bottom of the windows to the floor by an additional two feets or so gives the illusion of much bigger windows.
I also made my windows look much wider than they are by attaching the curtain rod brackets further beyond the sides of the windows by about 6 inches on either side, so that the drapes cover a portion of the wall, hiding the spot where the wall meets the edge of the window, so the effect is that it looks like a bigger window! I thought it made my very small "master bedroom" look more important.
October 12th, 2008 at 01:45 pm 1223819132
We do have blinds because the builder installed them all. I remember it was around $1k and I was almost too stingy. But I now realize it was WELL worth it. I am not sure we could have custom ordered them ourselves, much less the PITA in installing all those blinds. So we do have window coverage everywhere. Phew. But blinds just aren't as elegant as drapes, for sure.
Fern - & I am just lucky to find drapes to cover my windows. But if we had an older home, yeah I would do the same. I imagine it does dress up a room considerably.