Repotted my Fiddle Fig aka Ficus Lyrata

This is Fike (Ficus Lyrata) on the day he came home from the nursery two years ago. Isn't he beautiful? He did beautifully and grew lots of new leaves, despite me never repotting him. Oops. 

Then his parents went on holiday...

He dropped most of his leaves and barely came back from the brink of death. 

Below is a photo of Fike on moving day - see him on the right?  Shadow of the young plant he formally was. I'm sure the movers were wondering why we even bothered. Poor Fike!

Below:  this was Fike before I repotted him. Already bouncing back and looking good. Only six months between the photo above (winter) and the one below (now/June).

And voila! In his slightly bigger new pot! Doesn't he look handsome?

I'm sure the real gardners out there are cringing he doesn't have a drainage hole, but I put some filler at the bottom of the pot as well as using potting soil that helps manage over and under watering, so I'm optimistic Fike is on to better days. 

And if you happen to like this planter, I bought it online from Overstock here. It took me forever to find an indoor planter I liked and even longer to click "buy" and spend so much on them. 

After a coupon the price was reduced to $123 for 3 pots (small/medium/huge). Now that I've seen them in person, I don't have any regrets and am very happy with the value.

The "large" size is really HUGE so if you can put them to good use, I think the quality is worth it. Sorry I the small one didn't make the above photo, I had left it downstairs when I took this photo.

Historic home: basement door before and after

This is what it's come to. Redoing a basement door makes me so very happy!

It was done out of necessity. The threshold was allowing water to leak in and some old wood rot had been poorly patched (that gray patch in the lower left corner of the outside door jam). And ewe, that faceplate for the doorknob had seen better days. And it was not original, a historic replica, so easy enough to replace with the same.

Now the door looks so spiffy, I'm thrilled with the difference and almost glad it was leaking!! Otherwise I might have gone on thinking this "before" door was decently acceptable. I think a new manual doorbell is also in order since this one is on its way to become like the door knob plate. It's so fun to ring, you turn the key and a bell rings on the other side.

Photo of the door before and after

Historic home: peek at recent past

Just when I came to terms with the fact that I'll never be the historic homeowner who finds the cool original doors to the house in the attic (namely because our attic is more like a crawl space thanks to a flat roof); I was totally shocked when I found a new snippet into the past today.

I was honestly just wiping up a little spill off the floor, when I noticed the baseboard also needed a wipe down. Then I figured I ought to wipe down the area behind the cover, where the knobs are.

Can we keep it a secret that this discovery highlights the fact that this is the first time I cleaned inside there? Shhhhhh. But I was pleasantly surprised to see a snippet of the 1980s wallpaper behind the baseboard cover.

So now I'm fairly certain the kitchen I bought, was renovated by the previous owners as it had a stripped wallpaper. And the paper sort of matches the wallpaper under the office's silk cloth tapestry they added.

Kitchen wallpaper before (tan and red stripes):

It's just so interesting to me. Just when I was thinking I had seen all of our home's surprises - boom! I get one!! Okay. It's a little one. And it's just from the 80s... but it's still super fun to me.

Lately we have learned tons about our attic and HVAC system lately. Our rooftop unit went out (ahem, the bedrooms, of course). Now we are wait for the weather to be nice enough to have a final diagnosis on the A/C; so that may be another adventure on its own. As of now, we are grateful that the cooler weather makes it bearable while we wait.  But now I live in fear that we might need an entire new unit, which isn't the end of the world, but when they mentioned a crane would be required, it freaked me out a tad.  Luckily the hubs is ultra cool and is absorbing it gallantly so I have been attempting to emulate him.

And in the last 5 ish months since I last posted?? Our kitchen was finished early March.
Contractor Chris wrapped everything up and gave his key back to me in April.
Designer Elizabeth is on maternity leave, (it was a boy!) so that gives us time to recover from the renovation and start to consider some new furniture pieces.

Move In Day aka Week 15 of House Renovation

We moved house today! Oh yes we did.

We are so excited by the new home (even though we know we are moving into a semi-construction zone and won't have a kitchen quite yet!). Seriously excited our top floors are done!! 

In fact, we are too busy, and too happy to notice the "to do" list or even make much of a blog post. I just wanted to say WE MOVED IN.

Below is the floor that needs the majority of the remaining work! Oy!

 The very super duper original light fixture! Circa 1880s. Wow, right?!?

Weeks 9-13

I'm starting to be able to see what the house will actually look like finished and I'm getting excited!!

Been averaging a visit to the house about every 5 days which has been good. Hubs gets more stress about all the work left to do when he visits the house too much. There's times where I refuse to go over with him because I know there won't be enough changes to warrant the visit. Weird. I know.

Real life outside the house seems to take up most of my time these days. And because I tend to over research sometimes, it's taking me longer to make decisions. It's a curse, but then, it's pretty cool when your SIL is on the way to the store and asks what brand washing machine she should get since she knows I already did more reading on it then she ever would. We went with Electrolux brand if you're wondering.

Week 9-10
The house wounded up needing tons of plaster work to repair walls after wallpaper removal. Especially the dining room. Oh that poor dining room. Then the plasterer didn't show. And then finding a new one became it's own challenge. And then I had to leave town for two weeks.

  

Week 10-11
The weather turned cold, so it was a relief to when the radiators started up without any problems. Finalized all paint colors! Okay, a few I totally asked Elizabeth to pick my kitchen wall color. I think because I want the kitchen to be perfect, I couldn't make any decision. Frozen. Plus it was weird to worry about colors about while traveling. Hubs and I joke about the scene in Lost in Translation and the package his wife overnighted him. We can't be like that! Ha!

Below: Kitchen & family room flooring & cabinet colors (squares) with paint samples.

Week 12
Looked at lights with Elizabeth in person, cause online was so uninspiring. It was hard to connect to any until I saw them in person.
Photo below; current thoughts for house (sorry it's a pic of a pic, life is crazy hectic these days).
Antique chandelier below is being considered for our dining room. They are re-wiring it this week so we can go see what it would look like lit.
Mover bids & giving away random house stuff.
Selling a few things on my condo's bulletin board has helped us purge.

 

Week 13
Finalizing light fixtures, still. Hubs took an interest, it's been more of a negotiation between us. He prefers way more traditional lights and while I tend towards the juxtaposition of modern fixtures in historic homes. It took time to find ones that we agree on, fit the budget, and work for the house. Yeah. It's an annoying trifecta.


Haven't ordered them, but this is the idea:

Upcoming week:

• A radiator specialist is removing a long baseboard radiator in the basement because the new built in cabinets are going where it sits. And then we are thinking to replace it with a smaller one. Heat wise we should be good since we are adding heated floors. 
• Calling antique store to request they go ahead a re-wire a light fixture we are potential interested in for the dining room. Then hubs and I will be able to see what it looks like lit  we like it off, so fingers crossed  
• Working through the "to do" list for the move. Seriously so many annoying details. 
• New car search. The timing of this is the worst. And Hubs and I have different ideas of what we should get next (we only have the 1 vehicle), so we are kicking tires and getting to know what's out there now. I test drove one and loved what cars are like now. 

Weeks 5-8 of Home Renovation: Old Wallpaper Behind Walls & Pipes Moved

October was a lot of behind the scenes progress after the demo phase. Seems to be the phase where things look a lot worse before they can look better. Which has been a bit discouraging as the homeowner, but the logical "construction side" of my brain knows better.

Check out these two photos of this old wallpaper we found behind the walls after the pipe was moved. Photos of where it was hiding are after the jump...

Week 4 Home Reno: Pipes behind the walls

It was a fairly smooth week, so I only made it over to the house twice this week. Once to drop off new tile we bought (pics below!) and to check out the newly discovered pipes behind the wall.

I'd like to suggest that every renovation budget have an automatic line item of "moving pipes" and be sure to double it from what you anticipate.  That's the page we turned this week.  Don't get me wrong, I knew it was coming, but it still hurts.


Tuesday / Kitchen Slabs - Went to see our new kitchen slabs in person!
Relieved I like the new ones just as much as the original (the original slabs had a finishing issue). I had a super hard time deciding on the cabinet color but...drum roll... it is officially Sherwin Williams Serious Gray 6256
Happily hand Elizabeth a key to the house this week too!

So many potential gray paint colors!

Home Renovation Weeks 2 and 3: Carpet Gone

Week 2: Surprise Under Stairs

Two weeks of updates in one post! Hope it's not too long, but we were traveling last week.

Carpet Removed - the old carpet was removed while we waited to receive bids from potential contractors. And SURPRISE we discovered this black stripe on all of the above ground stairs.  So at some point in time the stairs were stained an ebony color and it was (partially) removed, perhaps in the 1980s or 90's when it was last remodeled.
Which makes me wonder... at what point in time it was stained black??

Sanding and re-staining all the stairs would be much more costly than replacing the carpet runner so the stripe will remain for the next owner to wonder about.

Not to be out done, the basement stairs (pic below) also came with a stripe of unfinished wood.  And some really nasty sub-floor was at the top (to be replaced with original hardwoods from another location).

Renovation Week 1: A new car too? Noooooo!

Renovation Week One Report 

I'm starting the clock with the day we bought the house. It might be cheating since we planned during that month before, but it is better for my mental health this way. =)

Under the Carpet

We have wood floors under the existing carpet! Hooray!

The master bedroom needs to be patched where the original closet was removed, but they are in decent shape otherwise.  I was told due to the size of the existing flooring, they have to make the replacement floorboards by hand.  Hmmmm. Sounds expensive.

New Car

We had a "fun" surprise on the day we drove over to our new house with shiny new keys in hand. 

Our car can't turn the tight corner into the garage.  The garage is "normal" size. But the alleys were designed before today's oversized vehicles were invented, so they are quite narrow.  Our vehicle is too long to make the tight turn. After about 30 minutes of "Are you serious?" we realized it wasn't going to happen and went back to our condo.  

My friend's SUV fit after a 3 point turn, so not all hope is lost.  Have to say, I am so thankful I was not the one driving that day.  So um, yeah, let's just go ahead and add buying a new (smaller) car to the list.  No. That's not stressful at all. Not at all.

Quotes for Work Needed

Both our designer Elizabeth and myself met 3 contractors out at the house this week so they could size it all up with the plans and provide a bid for the work.

My carpet guy came out to measure for his quote on Monday. I had a coronary when I saw the quote for the new carpeting on the stairs. 

We might have wood stairs withOUT the beautiful carpeting chosen as a stair runner.

They are removing the old carpet next Tuesday. Elizabeth explained a carpet runner is very labor intensive work and we have a LOT of stairs (and price is in the normal range), but we can always do it after we move in aka when we have the money.

Keys

I asked Elizabeth if it would be too forward of me to give her a key to the house so she can come and go. She laughed and said lots of clients give her one. That made me feel better, I was afraid I was implying too much. 

In the back of my head, I'm debating to changing the locks for the renovation or just add a punch code key pad.

Cabinets

E & I made a second visit to the cabinet maker I selected to review cabinet faces for the entire home (kitchen, master bath, wet bar and the office). Picking a paint color for the study's painted cabinets was so easy, but I'm struggling with the kitchen color.  I want a blue grey, but not too dark and not baby blue. Internal struggles. 

Kitchen Slab Update

The quartzite slabs we selected for the kitchen were having issues with the finishing, but lucky me, they have a new shipment of the same slab withOUT the problem coming in next week.
The best part? Now I get consecutive slabs that will match end to end. Talk about a happy accident.  

Just hope the new slabs have the same look as my old ones. 

The lighter color slab above is for the kitchen (a natural quartzite) and the dark one is a marble for basement's fireplace hearth and surround. I know marble is all the rage now and lots of people love living with it, but the foods that destroy marble are all of my husband's favorites. Don't trust ourselves with marble in the kitchen quite honestly. 

Next Week...

Past Client Site Visit - I am traveling so Elizabeth will be visiting a past client of one of the potential contractors to see his work in person on our behalf. 

Wallpapers - Hubs and I (or just me?) will be looking at wall paper samples this weekend. 

Review Pricing - Hopefully the quotes from the contractors will come in for our review.

Removing carpet on Tuesday.

We Bought a House!! Planning a Renovation

We closed on our house Friday, September 9th! The entire process was amazingly smooth. We met some of our nice new neighbors while there for our final walk through too.

The home was built in 1884 and has been well maintained so we didn't hesitate to make an offer the day we saw it. And the best part is a previous owner already moved walls, so the work we want to do at this point is mostly cosmetic.

The kitchen and master bath are in great shape, but unfortunately outdated and not our style so we will be renovating them. Originally we tried to steer away from homes that needed work, but we realized most of them needed something, but I didn't know anything about the process and there wasn't much online. I'm going to do my best to try to document the entire experience in case it helps anyone else with their first major renovation project.

Kitchen (before):

Master Bath (before):

Made Offer - Mid-July 
When we made an offer, hubs and I agreed we wanted 1) a new kitchen and 2) to renovate as many bath/powder rooms as our budget would allow. All before we moved in. My SIL recently lived through a massive renovation and she recommended avoiding it if possible. One visit to her home mid-renovation was enough to convince me she was right.

Researched Designers/Contractors - Late July
I started researching design firms and asking friends if they could recommend anyone. Initially looked for a Design Build firm - where the designer and builder work together as one company. It sounded the safest from my perspective. Ultimately went a different route when I found a designer who's work I loved and who had glowing remarks from past clients. I read a lot of people think Design Build firms can be more expensive over hiring them separately, but I never explored it enough to discover if this is true or not.

Initial Meetings and Selection - Late July
While looking at kitchen photos on Houzz I realized that the ones I liked most, were from the same handful of designers so I started reaching out to them to set up meetings and ask if they were available for a new project.
One firm didn't return my email or my phone call which I think is just plain rude. It's not that hard to copy and paste some verbiage into an email to explain you aren't accepting new clients. I still have a grudge and plan to carry it for a bit longer.  

Contracted with Elizabeth for design work - August 1st
We selected a designer whose style and approach to our project matched us best. Most importantly, I could work really well with her. And this is important. We signed a contract with Elizabeth to start right away so we could hit the ground running after we closed. I feel lucky she had the availability for my project due to another one getting stalled.

What that month was like before we closed...
Within a month we have "bid ready" designs and all of our materials selected. Pretty sure this is not a normal turn around, so add an extra month or maybe two if you are reading this for your own renovation.  It was a whirlwind, but I think looking at all the homes we didn't buy, actually helped me hone-in on exactly what I did or did not like. I pretty much knew what I wanted.  And the Hubs was pretty hands off and even jokingly only requested we be sure to include a disposal in the kitchen. Only having one decision maker made things go a lot faster, as I didn't have to discuss each little thing, or coordinate multiple schedules to go look at tiles/slabs/carpets/plumbing/cabinets/etc.  I mean, I did struggle on some decisions, but it could have been so much worse if there were two of us struggling!  

Although we had to make decisions timely, it never felt rushed. Most of the time was spent designing the kitchen. What I envisioned, didn't always fit in the space or fit in the budget. Like the faucet I thought I wanted. Until I learned it was $2,890. Yes. I am serious. Or that pesky air conditioning tubing getting in the way of my wine fridge.

There will be design challenges for renovation work.  Expect them.
And when the stress of it all creeped in, Elizabeth was super helpful in defusing the process and answering all my crazy questions and making it fun and exciting. Even my husband who has been hands off, admitted to seeing the value in a designer and her work, guidance and experience being worth the fees (vs a DIY approach). This approach works for us, but might not make sense for everyone, I get that.

I want to point out, doing all this work with Elizabeth prior to actually closing on the house was risky. We could have ended up paying her for designs we didn't need if anything happened to derail the home purchase. The sellers and their agent were all so reasonable and genuine, we didn't have any red flags and trusted our instinct and decided the advance progress to be gained was worth the risk.

Next step is for the three potential contractors to walk through with our plans and provide bids.

After Photo with Dining Room Updates

The updates to the dining area came together relatively quickly that I just realized I never posted an "after" photo after my previous post.  This is the dining room as it is today after updating three elements.

Ch-ch-changes to our Dining Room

Minor updates to the dining area have started to happen around here (and I stress minor!)

While the room was functional, it has never felt finished to me so my most recent focus was to try and give the dining area the attention it deserved.

Items to be addressed:
1) Change light fixture to one that's more to scale
2) dining chairs to something more comfortable and in a more updated fabric
3) hang something on that poor empty wall
4) centerpiece for table


Below are the items I've purchased so far.

** UPDATE **
New photos can be found here
** UPDATE **

Sewing: Lined Curtains (Steps 6-10)

Continuing the steps to sew the curtain panels...

Before and after, what a difference!

Previously we
* Determined how much fabric we need
* Completed the sewing steps part one of this post (steps 1-5)

Sewing: Lined Curtains (Steps 1-5)

While it's easy enough to buy curtain panels, they typically only come in standard sizes and windows tend to be anything but standard, which is why you are probably here trying to decide if it's worth making your own.  

If you have a sewing machine (or can borrow one), the answer is YES! Try not to be intimated by the outrageous pricing of custom drapes.  The online quote for drapes in the exact same fabric was $1,992.  Sewing a few straight lines is child's play compared to that sticker shock.  

If you are following along from my last post where we calculated fabric needs, you hopefully have your curtain rod or curtain track hung with the hooks/clips to make measuring easier for the next steps.  If you don't, no worries, I didn't have my curtain track up, so I found its measurements and the measurements of the carriers for my curtain track online to help me plan (carriers are the equivalent of a drapery ring when using curtain tracks).

The steps below assume you have purchased the amount of fabric needed, found in the previous post explaining how to calculate fabric needs.  I've tried to cut down the explanation to make it easier to just follow step by step without getting too lost in the details, but included links to tutorials I found helpful if you need more explanation.  And amazon links are affiliate links.

Next Project: Lined Curtains for Guest Room

Have you ever slept in your guest bedroom?  Not a nap, but a real overnight visit to experience the bedroom from your guests' perspective?  It sounds completely logical, but it never crossed my mind until an article suggested doing just that to help you discover what your guest room might be missing.

While the hubs was out of town, I camped out for a couple nights in the guest bedroom to check it out.  The change of view was pretty fun.  One of the things I noticed was how the sun seemed to arrive slightly earlier and brighter than my own bedroom; despite the existing window shades. Obviously I'm exaggerating, but I thought adding curtains might be a nice touch to soften the look of the room, added functionalality, and it'd be a fun sewing project for me.

Product Review: Liquid Bar Keepers Friend

Ever have a product amaze you so much you wanted to tell everyone?  Just recently I used the liquid version of Bar Keepers Friend to clean my stainless stove top and it did a super job removing cooked on grease.  I cannot explain the plethora of products I've previously tried on these spots.  Seriously.  And just this one ring was proving to be impossibly stubborn so it really annoyed me that much more.

I read the Manly Housekeeper's post on removing soap scum and hard water stains from his shower, where he tests and compares six products and shares the results - it's a seriously awesome post, you should check it out.  That was the first time I knew BKF was available in a softer liquid version, so I bought a bottle at Target and tried it on my stove top.

The before and after photos say it all.  Sounds weird, but I was actually giddy when I realized my rag was getting dirty - it meant the nasty ick was finally coming off my stove! Hooray for cleaning products that work and even better, it's made in the USA.

Side by side before and after Liquid Bar Keepers Friend

Painting the Townhouse Gray

Eeeny meeeny miney mo! 
The colors look very different in the photo but it just shows how you can have five fabulous recommended colors and it's still a tough decision.

 

Since we've moved cities a few times, our first home has since became a rental.  The townhouse was originally painted in beige/cream color (called Ceyon) but we wanted to update it with a neutral gray to give it a more contemporary look.  Paint color and carpets would need to be picked out in person, so I flew down to check it out.  Eventually picked Sherwin Williams Amazing Gray paint (SW 7044)!

Chinese Chippendale Chair Before & After

Found it! A Chinese Chippendale (bamboo) style chair has been added to the guest bedroom's desk this week.  Yay!
After searching and searching, style chair was either only sold in sets or was quite expensive (Jonathon Adler's version starts at $500).
One night, a forum poster on DecorPad.com also suggested the Chinese Chippendale style for my Natura desk, so I thought I'd try looking just one more time. This time my google-fu stumbled on this chair being offered by One Kings Lane.  It was not the right color and I had been hoping to find a $10 Craig's List chair, BUT since it was the first reasonably priced chair I had seen that was not sold in pairs, I jumped on it.


Lessons Learned

• Customizing the chair is as easy as "they" say!
  A little paint and fabric and the chair was my own style.  While it took time, the level of skill required was minimal.  I could see this chair being many different colors long into the future!
• Painting with a brush works too.
  Since I am in a high-rise building, spray painting is not an option (sad face!).  If I hadn't already painted my dining chair legs, I would have been nervous about streaks and brush strokes, but those turned out really smooth.  And the chair looks great too!  No brush strokes at all.
• Work fast with latex paint!
  The white high gloss paint dried so fast that I had to be extra careful not to go over recently painted sections. Attention had be taken to smooth out paint bumps or drips right away, since it might be too tacky to smooth out later.  With other paint types, I never had the hurry and do it right feeling like I did with this.  =)  One tip given to always keep a wet edge of paint when using latex.  Good advice.
• Be strategic about the order you paint sections.
  The chair back took a lot of time to paint because of all the small nooks and angles, and a lot more touch up was necessary because it was really hard to get good paint coverage in certain spots.
  I found it worked best to start by painting a thin layer of paint on those difficult spots first, then paint the remainder of the chair and then go back to the difficult spots again.  By the time I worked my way to the trouble areas, the were dry enough for me to paint again. 

Materials Used for Chair Re-Vamp

• White gloss latex paint (dried super fast, just needs 2 hrs between coats)
• fine grit sand paper
• 1 1/2" synthetic paint brush (had at home)
• this chair needed 3 coats (minimum).  I bought an 8 oz paint can, and used less than half the can.  Since white isn't a saturated color, I would have been find with a sample size 4 oz container. 
• About 3/4 of the yard of fabric I purchased at a local fabric store
• Staple gun to secure fabric to seat (had at home)
• Drop cloth to protect floors and collect dust from sanding

As I'm typing this list, I realized I only sanded my chair and didn't get paint with primer mix it (my usual method).  Ugh.  Fingers crossed it doesn't start to bubble or crack.  Regardless, I love my chair!

Guest bedroom 

The room is still a work in progress, still looking for

• artwork for above the bed
• navy euro shams (scheduled to ship this week)
• nightstand or small chest of drawers for the side opposite the desk
• large scale artwork for the wall opposite the bed.  Or maybe a dresser?
  Obviously a guest room doesn't really need a dresser, but I was thinking I could use 1/2 to stash some sewing goodies.  Ha!

Sewing Reveal: Split Shower Curtain Drapes

Super excited to show off my new shower curtain panels!  These are functional shower curtains - and hung on just one shower curtain rod.  Yippee!

It felt so good to finish them and even better to finally have something hanging up in the bathroom.  It was impossible to get a decent photo, they're over 8 feet tall and in our smallest bathroom (no room to get a wide shot).

 

On the right is the batik art that started it all

Deciding on a Plan of Attack

Lining ready to be pinned

After I schemed the details out of what I wanted to make, I used Midwest Magnola's tutorial on sewing lined curtain panels.  After poking around a lot of sites, hers was by far the clearest.  If you can't tell, I respond to lots of photos, and she had photos of each step.  I measured my shower and decided I wanted each panel to measure 36" x 98".

For the Borders

I wanted the corners mitered, like how the points of a photo frame come together at the perfect angle.  The tutorial at Saltwater Quilts  helped get that done.  Once the border attached was attached, I just treated the it all like one piece of fabric for Midwest Magnola's instructions.

Then followed the tutorial's instructions for attaching the lining and finishing the bottom hem.

Finishing the Top Hem

I finished the top hem differently than the tutorial since I wasn't planning to use clip rings and was using a 5" hem.  I had read another tutorial that suggested an even bigger hem (as in 10-15" extra fabric, folded over).  But it seemed a bit excessive me and I was a little short on fabric so I improvised and sort of split the difference between the tutorials. 

• Turned down the fabric 6" and pressed.  Then open.  That crease will the the top of the curtains when it's all done, so I inserted header tape here to give it more structure - you can sort of see the white strip showing through the lining in the photos below.  I just basted by hand to be at the very top of my hem once it's finished.
• Then turn down fabric edge 1/2" and press, then turn again and press.  So you have a nice finished edge (like the photo on the right).
• I tucked a stripe of witch stitchery, then sewed the folded edge and witch stitch.   

 

• Ultimately I decided a tab backed panel was the way to go since I wanted to hide the shower rod.  Using grosgrain ribbon was the easiest, so I cut 7 "tabs" and spaced them out evenly.  I picked 7 to correlate with the number of holes on the plastic liner.  And rather than sewing them down flat, I used a spool of thread as a guide after seeing the tip here.  
• This would be the time to sew the tabs on to the back most layer (in the right photo below, the tabs would be sewn to the section of material that is folded back).  By attaching to just the one single back layer, there won't be a ton of nasty stitches on the front.

 

• Once the tabs are sewn on, just sew a straight line along the edge.  Or you can take the easy way, like me and use more witch stitchery.  Then iron accordingly.  

Viola!  All done.  Hang them up!

My hubs was super sweet and let me drag him out of bed (he was reading) to indulge me to go see them finished and hanging up.  You know that giddy feeling of finally finishing... I was bursting to show him the mess on the dining table was worth it.

New Photos of Curtains Installed!

The draperies I had made in Shanghai have been up and installed since July, but am just now posting photos.  Oops!  In person they are a woven gray blend with a slight hint of blue, they take on all sorts of shades in these photos.

Installers hard at work!

Finding a Contractor

It took some shopping around to find a place that would actually follow-up on the work.  We'd sit and chat about what I needed, and they'd tell me to expect a call/email next week with the formal quote and the estimated start date.  And then - nothing!  It was sort of pathetic (and frustrating!) to see two of the more popular window treatment businesses operate like that.  

For a while I thought I might have to install them myself, but thank goodness my sanity came back and I found a terrific local company to install them.  

Freshly installed (typical: split centered on each window)

Installation Day

Due to the nature of the windows, we went with ceiling mounted aluminum tracks.  Watching the install made me appreciate the work that goes into it (and reaffirmed my decision to hire it out, ha!).  Plus I would have been way over my head with our concrete ceilings - the guys used a special drill and drill bit for the concrete.  

I was super excited they were able to install the 2 center panels to split open on the center of each window (typical) AND also be able to treat the corner windows as one; with the split at the two window's corner.  Not sure if that makes sense, but the photos show what I'm trying to say. 

Curtains opened across both windows

Mostly I was afraid the drapes would be too heavy to be in just two corners (they weigh ~75 lbs) but the installers used extra mounting brackets and spaced them closer together than a standard install to make it feasible. Big difference in my opinion and totally worth it!

Next Project...

Fabric wall on cloudy day 

It's funny to see the shelves in a photo (over by the left window), because it serves as a glaring reminder that I need to properly stage them, but I really don't like knick-knacks in general so it goes against all my instincts - hence the lack of anything being done about it.  Would love ideas on what to do with so many tiny shelves close together.  Just becomes such a low priority.

And I *really* need to find an over-sized painting for the left wall (not shown). Or maybe compose a "gallery wall" in the interim, but of course I'd rather have art. Heh heh.