Perseverance

That’s the name of the game for our “little” living room update. I put “little” in quotation marks because these updates turned out to be anything but little. Not only did they make a big impact on the room, they took foreeeevvvvveeeerrrrrr to complete. Well, maybe not forever but they sure as hell took longer than I anticipated.

I gave you a sneak peak in this post of the changes I was making to the living room. The first project was making new curtains.

The Before

Our old curtains were just plain dark brown. Our living room is a bit on the tiny and dark side (Star Wars joke goes here) and these curtains were not helping. Neither are the dark wall décor, dark brown couch, dark accent pillows and low ceiling fixture but one thing at a time, folks! Husband and I agreed that we should get some lighter colored curtains and maybe *gasp* a pattern!

I scoured the Internets and the real world for curtains and/or fabric. I got zilch. Nothing. Nothing seemed right. I am way too picky for my own good. I found a few options I kind of liked:

Via here

Via here

Via here

These are pretty expensive, at least for my budget. I really didn't want to pay too much for some fabric that I only kind of like.

For Christmas, my mom offered to take me shopping for curtains and she would pay for them. Shopping is our thing so she got something out of this gift too, no matter what she tells you. Husband was even brave enough to join us. I should have taken a picture but we were too focused on the task at hand. I decided that if we couldn’t find anything, we would just get white curtains. I know white would still be plain and simple but a least they would lighten the space. Then, if I discovered the most perfect magical soul mate curtains (which would likely happen right after we bought some), we could just switch them out and use the white curtains elsewhere. It wasn’t a matter of settling. It was a matter of saving my sanity and realizing that things don’t have to be perfect. I didn’t want to waste months trying to find the perfect curtains because, really, it’s not that big of a deal. Let it go, dude.

After searching around, Husband and I decided we liked one of my previous picks from fabric.com.

Via here

It’s still brown, but it’s a light brown and it has a pattern. This fabric is also a bit more modern, which is the direction our decorating style has been heading. Done and done.

Once I got the fabric in the mail, I cut and hemmed the fabric with some heavy duty hem tape.

I use this stuff because I suck at sewing. It works just as well, as evidence will show.Who needs a sewing machine?

I picked up some ring clips at Bed Bath & Beyond and here is where I give you a little tip. Did you know that ring clips come in different sizes? You did? O I guess it’s just me. Well, if anyone wasn’t aware, ring clips come in different sizes. I discovered this when I tried to put these on our curtain rod and they were a millimeter too small.

I tried and tried and tried to make them fit but they just wouldn’t. I almost had a mini meltdown because I was having lots of issues with some other projects and all I could think was, “Can ONE project go smoothly?!? Just ONE?!?!?!?!?!”

Another tip = one project at a time. That way, you only have one hurdle to cross at a time instead of sixty because you decided to do sixty projects at once. Ugh. Shortly after hanging the curtains, I did this post because I just needed to take a step back and breathe.

So anyway, I went back to Bed Bath & Beyond and exchanged the curtain rings for a larger size and all was right with the world again.

I clipped my curtain panels and strung 'em up!

Better open?

Or closed?

Viola. New curtains. Oh and I also hung the curtains higher because all of the experts recommend you hang your curtains high and wide. Little did I know, this action would spur quite the *ahem* debate between Husband and I. Let’s just say, I have yet to fill in the holes from where the curtain hardware was previously located so that I can easily put the curtains back where they were. I’ll keep you posted.

My original plan was to continue this post with my new wall art, but it was starting to get a bit long. The wall art gave me fits and a big headache. So, the rest of my living room update will be posted later. See you then!