Curtains | Operation Home

I love how one awesome find has the potential to trigger that giant metaphorical ball to start arollin’. This happens to me a lot. I’ll just stare at a space for a while and do absolutely nothing to it. Then, out of nowhere, I’ll purchase one item that leads to a much more finished space in no time flat.

Last, we spoke about our dining room it looked like this….

We’d changed out the light carpet for ebony laminate, and basically plopped down our stuff on moving day. A good start for sure, but the room needed a large dose of softening. STAT. I’d discussed my plan for the space in this post, which was as follows…

Paint table white
Hang white curtains high and wide
Add a large, natural woven rug
Hang Ikea floating shelves above Drex

And thanks to that one teeny (well, super large) item, our plan now looks like this:

Paint table white
~~Hang white curtains high and wide~~
~~Add a large, natural woven rug~~
~~Hang Ikea floating shelves above Drex~~

…which happened all in one day.

See, I stopped by Lowe’s one fateful morning and saw this fantastic indoor/outdoor woven rug with a simple black striped border. The border was the kicker for me. I didn’t even know I wanted a border until I saw it. Then, I knew. Must.have.border. The durable indoor/outdoor quality made it ideal for a dining space what with accidental spills, crumbs, etc. Plus, the quality was nice… it didn’t look or feel cheap to me. And the price tag was FABul-oooouuusss!!!

$118 for an almost 8×10 rug!!!!! And I had a 10% off coupon!! I took him home and tried him out, which (warning!) may cause spontaneous hanging of curtains. And requests for already-busy husbands to stop what they’re doing to hang floating shelves….

Which left us here…

RIGHT???!!! So much better!!! I love the texture provided by the rug, and the height of the curtains makes the room seem grand.

For anyone wondering about the specifics for hang brackets and shelves, I generally follow these processes….

Curtain rod brackets: I measure 3 inches down from the ceiling and drill my holes for the brackets. This allows enough space for the curtains to be hung without crowding the ceiling. Now, if my curtains aren’t long enough to allow for this, I hang them as high as possible while still allowing them to graze the floor.

Shelves: This is a tricky one. I eyeball placement depending on the space, but I ALWAYS tape out the potential locations with painters tape first (as shown three pics up). I use a tape measure to measure out the exact length of my shelf on the wall, then I apply my tape from one mark to the other using a level to ensure that my tape is level and straight (basically, I hold my level with one hand and guide my tape with the other). Note: This is WAY easier to do with two people. But, I’m impatient and Joey wasn’t home. I always end up doing this when he’s not home for some reason. These shelves ended up being about 18″ apart and I think they’re perfect for this space.

Next up will be styling the shelves and painting the dining table white. Bamboo blinds beneath the curtain rod are also a possibility if I can find the right color. I also need to hem the curtains.

It’s funny that even though there’s still more to do, I feel like this space completely skipped crawling and went straight to walking in the span of a day. Of course, like I said, it’s nowhere near done yet, but it’s getting closer by the minute. And it’s definitely a far cry from this…

And although this is a totally dark picture (it was dusk), I have to show you our view from the breakfast nook through the dining space…

I friggin’ love this house.

Meet Lisa.

Ain’t she pretty? She’s been one of my best friends for many years. We worked together at my first job and have stayed good friends since then. She was matron of honor in our wedding and everything. And I really like having her for a friend. Mostly because she’s awesome, but partly because she allows me to wreak havoc on her house upon occasion. FOR FUN. So, when we chatted on the phone a few weeks ago and she asked if I wanted to come over and play around with her spare room, I responded with an excited “uh, yeeeeeaaahhhh.”. I mean, obviously. As a primo DIY dork, that’s totally my idea of a good time.

So, a few weeks ago I met Lisa and her equally awesome mom, Nancy, at Lisa’s place.

We assessed the space….

She wanted the room to serve the dual purpose of guest room and music room. After discussing it, we decided to go a little backwards by working out a good layout, buying some bedding and getting the room set up first, than painting the walls another weekend. This way, the room would be immediately useable to sleep guests (as opposed to painting and having nothing for guests to use on the bed along with an inconvenient layout). We plan to go back and paint the walls a deep grey as well as finish some other remaining projects, so consider this post to be the first in a series as we get ‘er done.

Lisa wanted many of the furniture pieces in the spare room to be used in other rooms, so we got to it. We moved the large hutch to the dining area and the desk along with shelving units and a bunch of other stuff upstairs…

That’s right. We rocked the socks off that furniture-moving business.

Then, we cleaned some, which lead to this attractive shot…

…which lead to my Family Guy impression: “I need more lemon Pledge“.

Once we were through, we relocated the bed beneath the larger window and the beast of a piano to the same wall (which weighed a TON, FYI)… Lisa did most of it. Respect. Nancy did a good amount as well. And, I mean, I tried to push it, but it felt like I was just pretending because nothing happened each time I heaved (Let it be known, I was not pretending. Swear.).

Then, we broke for lunch. Which was delicious. And shopping (Equally delicious).

We hit up Ross, Marshalls and Target and snagged some pretty sweet deals along with a bunch of stuff. Bedding, pillows, blankets, curtains, curtain rods, rug. Oh yes, it was a successful day for sure. Then, we headed back to Lisa’s to try it all on for size.

The bedding….

Which we love! We were originally looking for a simple white comforter on which to add colorful pillows, but when we came up empty-handed with the size we needed, Lisa spotted this beaut. The black and white damask print was perfect. Graphic, yet neutral at the same time. And for $39.99 at Ross, it was a steal. Lisa opted for turquoise accents to go with it, so we found the textured pillow at Target and the throw blanket at Marshalls.

I hung the curtains wider than the window and high enough so they just grazed the floor to allow in as much natural light as possible and give the windows more presence.

I removed the finials from the curtain rods in the corner to allow the rods to extend all the way over. This way, the curtains would appear connected. (And a special shout out goes to Lisa’s dad for driving over with a power drill for those more stubborn screws. You’re a trooper, Dean!)

So, here’s where we left off on the bedroom side after Day One….

Oh, yes. Here’s the before again so you don’t have to scroll up…

And across from the bed is a dresser that was moved from Lisa’s room…

And the before…

And here’s the music side of the room….

And the before…

Our original plan was to hang the instruments on the wall above the piano, but since we didn’t have the goods to accomplish that task this visit, Nancy suggested just setting them up there. And we did. And we really liked it. The artwork on top of the piano was previously stored in the room, and we stuck it up there pre-shopping, before we knew what bedding we’d find. We left it because it looks cool with the instruments, but obviously, its not in tune (har har!) with the more romantic, textural vibe of the bedroom side. As Lisa said, it seems like two different rooms. The painting may or may not stay depending on how the rest of the process goes. Once we paint the walls and finish accessorizing, we’ll decide if we can marry the painting with the remainder of the room. If not, Lisa said she’s perfectly fine with moving it out.

Our “to do” list…

1. Paint the walls a deep grey
2. Iron the curtains and certain bedding pieces (we figured it’d all get displaced whenever we paint anyways, so we’ll get our iron on then)
3. Revamp this piano bench…

4. Makeover this ceiling fan…