As I’m starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, I am also looking toward the fun part of my to-do list: Decorating! Of course, Christmas decorating is the priority, but I have another one that has been bugging me like none other, for a few years now. Our house was built in 1994. It was built very well, with high quality carpets and honeycomb cellular window shades. The trouble is, the first owner was also an interior decorator. Not a problem in the mid-90′s, but now the teal and pink colors leave much to be desired.
Our home is four levels. When you walk in the front door, you see a hall in front of you and the kitchen/dining rooms to your right. To the left going up are stairs to our master suite, and to the left going down, are stairs to a bedroom/bath level, and from there another set of stairs down to bedrooms/ family room level. The house has a varigated teal carpet in the living room, upstairs and downstairs hallways, and the stairs.
Main floor hall is hardwood (in dire need of refinishing), kitchen has vinyl (not so imposing in the color area, but has pink all the same). Eventually we will replace all of the carpets, but for now it is cost prohibitive. My main eyesore are those cellular shades. The living room shades are aqua, matching the teal carpet, and the dining room shades (5 of them!) are pink. It wouldn’t be SO bad if they weren’t 6 feet long, and if they didn’t make up the entire three walls of the dining room, from the floor up. And then the master bedroom shades are light purple.
Let me show you what I have to work with here.
As you can see, we are dealing with an array of colors here. We also have a black lacquer ceiling fan in our room, and white ones in the entry and living room. But the shades… what in the world can I do about them?? I asked FarmsteadLady a Loooonnnng time ago about this. She and I couldn’t come up with anything. Today, I found this article on How to Turn Ugly Cellular Shades into Beautiful Curtains, which looks promising. If nothing else, I gleaned from it that I can use Velcro!! That’s SUCH a great idea, because then I can easily change things up too! I’ve been messaging with The Nester on Twitter, and we’ve both been rather stumped. After finding this article, I may give it a try.
What about you? Have you ever done something to a cellular shade? The Nester calls these types of things Window Mistreatments, and I just LOVE that! It perfectly describes what I plan to do to these shades… I will definitely MISTREAT them… treat them as they were never intended to be treated! I’m totally open to suggestions though. I know I need valances or SOMETHING over those windows! And the colors? Ugh paint, fabric, I don’t care at this point. Suggestions please??
Here’s the first thing I thought of:
If you don’t like the shades – DITCH THEM. If you’re not, because they would be expensive to replace, and you need the privacy, you can ditch them and start with the VERY INEXPENSIVE Red Shades from Home Depot. (they’re folded paper, they stick on, and they have little clips so you can clip them up or let them down, my mom has them in her house.) Around 5$ each, depending on what size you need. That would give you an instant fix for very little money. Then you could spend most of your time and money at this time on some window treatments. Later, you could replace the shades, one window at a time, or one window at a time, with something more permanent. If you chose. Or you could just wait til the paper one needed to be replaced and replace it with a 5$ paper one. Your kids are old enough not to destroy them. Unlike mine.
.-= Amber @ Classic Housewife´s last blog ..Advent 2009: Execution =-.
Ditching them isn’t an option– they are VERY insulating and with the temps under 10 degrees right now, we can’t have our heat going out the windows. Summers are the opposite, with temps from high 80′s to 105 we can’t have the AC going that way either. The cost to replace them with the same quality shades is $1600 for all 7. What I need, then, is to doctor them up! Also, our windows are “non-standard” sizes. In fact every one in the house is non-standard! We can’t just go to a store and pick up shades or blinds for any of them. They all have to be custom-made. I’m looking more for The Nester’s “window mistreatment” style of fixing the problem! (And hey did you SEE my teal carpet???)
Oops – that should say “Redi Shade.” Not RED shade. (Though red shades would be interesting…) =D
.-= Amber @ Classic Housewife´s last blog ..Advent 2009: Execution =-.
Another typo… good grief. Should say “one window at a time, or one ROOM at a time.”
That settles it. I’m going back to bed.
.-= Amber @ Classic Housewife´s last blog ..Advent 2009: Execution =-.
I saw the teal carpet – Oh MY!
Well shoot about the windows. Who in their right mind….
I’m not one to talk about treatments, now MIS-treatments.. I have a black sheet thumb tacked over my living room window, and then brown curtains hung over the top of it. Shhh!! Don’t tell!
How about hanging white sheers in front of it, with curtain panels to either side. Lets the light in, covers the blinds, looks pretty. That’s about all I got. =)
.-= Amber @ Classic Housewife´s last blog ..You’d Better Watch Out, You’d Better Not Cry… =-.
Your carpet is the same color as ours. I don’t mind the color so much as I mind that it is just a yucky carpet (the texture is just so ick).
Blessings
Honey