Little Black Dress

Drapes are to Windows as Dresses are to Women. For a year and half, our naked windows have been staring at me begging me to take them dress shopping I have wanted to, but I don't feel like I can do the windows until the tone of the living room as been set. I know...I feel incredibly guilty because there's a ton of infiltration and heat loss through those windows, which is only jacking up our heating costs, our dependence on oil and working against the environment.

For my birthday last week, we went to Jomar to find some inexpensive fabric for drapes. We didn't walk out of there with anything for drapes, but we did get 20 yards of fabric for sheers. Jomar was having a sale so it was just $1/yard. On average, it can be anywhere from $2-$5/yard for sheer material. Since we have so many windows, we needed at least 30 yards, so every penny counts.

Since we had no luck at Jomar, we hit up the JCPenney Outlet at the Franklin Mills Mall which always has home stuff at really affordable prices. For one panel, drapes can cost around $25-45. For the bedroom, we found these on clearance for $12.99 for 2 panels! We were thrilled! They are similar to my bridesmaids' dresses. It's a gray-blue with a yellow undertone. I think I am going to go back to the store to find yellow/gold sheers to go underneath them which will pick up the colors in our accent pillow.



It's great for the winter, but might be too "heavy" for the summer. In contrast, I had another idea to use sheer material with a dark brown flocked floral pattern on it. It's going to be harder to find material like that though. Since our bed is in front of a window, I wanted to camouflage it a bit by creating a crown and have the fabric drape down like a canopy.



I'm not sure what to do with these walls. I'd like to add sconces.



This wall is really large and I really don't know what to do with it. Sconces would be too small and frames might be awkward with how rectillinear the mirror is.



In that far corner, I'd like to put a tall green plant and a new lamp. I'd like to replace the ceiling fan with a nice chandelier too, but the ceiling fan is actually pretty handy in the summer. There's no need for us to turn on the AC when it's just the two of us in one room.