Home Updates: How My Mistreated Windows Grew Up

So. This is the last post of the unofficial "Home Updates Series." 

If you'd like to catch up, here are the other posts:

Dresser Turned Entertainment Center

Anatomy of a Gallery Wall

Bookcase Bling

Today I'd like to show you how my adolescent, mistreated-but-just-fine-windows got a makeover. 

My poor windows sat naked for years. Window treatments can be spendy, especially when you have five of them in one room. And I'm sort of a perfectionist. So I simply did nothing while my sad windows sat victimized by my frugality and perfectionism.

When I first started reading The Nester about six years ago, she inspired me with her many ways one could "mistreat" a window. 

So, armed with my glue gun and Wal-Mart fabric, I decided that something was better than naked. I spent $20 on fabric and a little bit more on ring clips and upholstery tacks. 

I figured it would be temporary fix but those make-do mistreatments remained tacked to the walls for four and a half years.

After we painted and spruced up our great room, I knew it was time for my windows to grow up. A few months ago I found 8 sheery panels at a local antique shop. I risked $25 for them, not knowing if they'd work and not knowing when I'd ever get around to putting them up.

I'd also been holding on to a lovely vintage curtain rod with crystal finials I'd scored years ago at a thrift store, but I only had one. I was determined to use it so I told myself that all the curtain rods "don't have to match, they just have to go." {Channeling the sage advice of Clinton and Stacy.}

I found some in a similar finish at {gulp} Big Lots. As it turned out, they look just fine in the same room with their different but fancier sister who lives just further down the wall. 

Want to see what a difference sheery panels with real curtain rods make in this room?


BEFORE:

AFTER:

BEFORE:

{This tiny child is in middle school now. What?!?}

AFTER:

I know. It may be my favorite change to this space. I love how they still let in the light but they add a softness and finished-ness to the space. In my husband's words, the room looks more "sophisticated." {I didn't even know he had decorating adjectives in his vocabulary. He has so been holding out on me.} 

Thanks for letting me show and tell all of these fun changes to our main living space. 

I'm a house junkie and a homebody and I think about our home's spaces a lot. But...I've realized that I do not really love to write about my home. I like it, but I don't love it. It feels like work, especially posting all of the photos. {I don't know how all of you home bloggers do it.} 

While it's fun for me to do a house post here and there, I am so very ready to get back to the writing I love most. 

So stay tuned. I already have one scripted for tomorrow. It's kind of a special day.