Painting himself in a Corner

I hope everyone had a great holiday. Wanna know how ours was? This is how we spent Thanksgiving day (and into the night as you see):

Here's the 'before' shot:

And here's a view of the rest of the house all festively decked out:

We had home work on Thanksgiving (removing all window treatments and clearing all the areas in front of the windows). I guess it serves us right for leaving it to the last minute. Photos of the new windows soon!

Avoiding the Draft

My New Year's resolution for 2010 will be to stop throwing money out the window. And since I like a good head start, I weatherstripped our windows.

Here's what you'll need and how to do it, if you're lucky enough to have ancient windows like me:

Rubbing alcohol, paper towel (or a rag), tape measure, scissors, weatherstrip (appropriate width for your window)


First, open up your window and clean your cracks (or tracks, jambs if you take offense and want to be technical) with rubbing alcohol and paper towel. This will clean up greasy stuff, and general debris. Let it dry (which won't take long).

Then measure the crack-track-jamb and cut weatherstrip to length.

Then remove the adhesive strip and stick inside the area you just measured.

Close your window tightly, and you're done. If you have side sliding windows (or doors), do it on the sides. If you have regular up-down windows, do it on the top and bottom.

I should have done this a year ago, but we thought we were going to replace all our windows. Which is also why we didn't bother doing a decent job painting around the windows. Just ignore that :)

Do you have old original windows in your home? Is your place drafty? Are new windows crazy expensive like I think they will be (none of ours are standard sizes)? Do you have any resolutions for the new year that you can't wait to get started on?

The Hang of it

After finally hanging up some window coverings, several months later I've finally hung up some curtains to cozy up the look:


At this rate, they'll be hemmed around Christmas.

Do you have a home project that isn't that costly or time consuming but you've been dragging your feet on? Make me feel better and say yes.

Hang Up

After 9 months of living here, we decided to get some window blinds. Yeah, we are that slow. Fortunately our place is pretty private so we were in no hurry. Unfortunately, the sun light shining through makes it hot.

We already put curtains up over the 2 biggest light sources in our house, so we decided to do the rest in the living room as well:


I ordered these bamboo blinds on clearance from Home Depot. I chose these for the neutral color, texture and casual feel. This house isn't fancy so these seemed to be the way to go.

I overmounted them outside the windows because it would be a lot easier to do, and we do intend on replacing the windows someday (so I didn't want to invest in window treatments that are somewhat temporary). I hung 2 blinds side by side because otherwise it would have to be custom ordered and that spells b-l-i-n-g.

These aren't the most private blinds, but it hasn't been an issue for us. And they block out a fair amount of sun. And makes our place look more cozy and a little more lived in.

Have you taken your sweet little time with a particular home project? Even if it's as simple as window blinds as my case?

It's Curtains

Now that it's getting hot, I've decided it would be nice to block the sun from the main/biggest sources in our home: the 2 sliding doors.


After months of living with these doors, I am aware of how frequently they are used and decided to go with grommet curtains for their sliding ease.

After 1 dreaded trip to Ikea (I love/hate that place, love the prices but hate hate hate the experience), I got all that was needed to do the job:

(VÅGEN curtain rods $9.99, the longest length I could find there)

(MERETE curtains in brown $39.99, in the shorter length)

After measuring 3 times and marking the spots, we drilled holes and put in wall anchors (because although the rods are light, the curtains are heavy). I hung the curtains higher and wider than the doors to make them look bigger. It also keeps the curtains from blocking the doors when they are pulled open, and out of the way. It also conveniently made for less fabric to hem :)

Tip: before installing the rods and definitely before hemming, wash these curtains because they do shrink a bit (due to their 100% cotton make up). That will determine their final length.

For basic cotton curtains (ie. no fancy liners or thermal technology), they block out a fair amount of light and therefore heat. They also block out views of squirrels, bunnies and other woodland creatures. However, there are ways to bypass this as demonstrated above.

Are there other attractive 'window' treatments for sliding doors that you've seen?