So this blank canvas thing. It’s all very well and people (rich people, mainly) keep telling me that I’m very lucky moving into a house where no one has put their stamp on it yada yada, but I’m just not creative in that respect. I mean, I’m creative in lots of other ways, like explaining away some new kitchen gadget I’ve bought and not told Hubby about (’oh that? Had it ages - in fact, I think me Mam gave it to us when we moved house last time’) but I’m not creative in that I don’t know the difference between teal and jade, or what colour will go with the horrible yellowy magnolia colour that the builder painted all our walls. This all lead to the big, expensive mistake that was the bedrooms.
Someone we met up here suggested this nice lady in Kells who makes curtains. Then in a spectacularly matter-of-fact aside happened to mention that you could probably get your whole house done for ‘ooh … six grand?’ Six grand? Six bloody shitting flamin’ grand?! Do I look like Aristotle Bloody Onassis? I was thinking more along the lines of six hundred, and that was going to be a struggle.
You see, for the smalls, who already had several different types of blue bedlinen, it made sense to stick with blue, so quickly writing off the nice Kells lady as a bad and expensive idea, we headed for Dundalk where there was one of those trading estates with lots of shops with names like ‘Homestore and More’. We sent the boys off to have a look and in the meantime wandered aimlessly amongst the ready-made curtains (I know, how common) and settled on these sort of quilted, vaguely satiny looking chocolatey brown ones with a thin golden stripe meandering through them. I thought they looked quite substantial and would look luxurious and hotel-like and warm up our pine floors a treat whilst hinting nicely at this season’s trend for metallics. The boys found white ones with different coloured blue dots going through them which we all agreed would say ’sunny, country bedroom’. Oh dear. How wrong we were.
The boys’ curtains, rather then saying ’sunny country bedroom’ say ‘oh dear, I’m rather transparent and let the sun wake everyone up at 5am’ and our bedroom says ‘holy crap, did I take a wrong turn and walk into a brothel?’. Don’t and I repeat, don’t, buy metallicy brown curtains. They may look classy in the pack and feel gorgeous to the touch, but every time I walk into my bedroom I feel like I should start stripping down to my black lace lingerie and pressing my breasts against the window with a ‘come hither’ look on my heavily made-up face. Now that would frighten the cows…
PS: Sorry for the poor photo quality but I was trying to tell the dog off for putting his snotty wet nose on my blanket at the same time as taking the photo. Multi-tasker, me.
Comment by 73man — September 18, 2007 @ 5:20 pm
Comment by englishmuminireland — September 19, 2007 @ 7:59 am
what about setting then off with a plain colour?.Its easier to say than do I’m sure but Habitat is full of lovely satin/metallic curtains at the minute but they have them hung (for effect) with a swash of what looks like cream canvas (like a third curtain on the window)..it takes the ‘glam’ off the satin and looks lovely.You could get some fabric and stitch it yourself..you wouldn’t need to be Martha Stewart..just hid the stitching..?
I love the boys curtains too and you can buy lining (cheap as chips) and tack it onto the back ot them..again you don’t need to spend ages..just hide the stitches.
Comment by Isitjustme? — September 19, 2007 @ 10:07 am
Comment by englishmuminireland — September 19, 2007 @ 1:37 pm
Don’t think the curtains look that bad at all. It’s the magnolia colour which in my opinion doesn’t really go with anything, opposite of what the whole Irish building industry seems to believe.
My strategy is to buy curtains in floor length. Even the cheapest ones look pretty classy that way. I think all the curtains for our house worked out about 350.
I’m cheap, you see. Most of the time.
I like the look of wooden blinds alright but hate the idea of cleaning them. So just got all the windows fitted with plain creamy roller blinds. Looks decent enough.
Comment by Foreigner — September 19, 2007 @ 3:14 pm
Comment by englishmuminireland — September 19, 2007 @ 3:57 pm
Comment by Tummy Mummy — September 19, 2007 @ 7:19 pm
Comment by englishmuminireland — September 20, 2007 @ 9:31 am