Living Room Window "Mis-Treatments"

I want to know who it is that designs living rooms? I go to a lot of open houses and it never ceases to amaze me how badly living room layouts are! There is always a door in a stupid place or a fireplace off center in a room or something that makes it incredibly hard to decorate a room around. Well, my living room is no exception. It is a long rectangle with no natural focal point. The front wall (which is a long wall of the rectangle) has two double windows right next to each other, the wall opposite has three doorways...count them, three! Two go into the same room! The two end walls, one has a window and the other is broke up by these two partial walls with ugly spindles on top! Yikes.

One of the first things that I did when we moved into this house was to take down the dark, heavy drapes that covered these large window to let some light in. Actually, our view is not too bad either! Many paint colors and room  transitions later, I have ended up with my new mis-treatments. This idea came from many of the wonderful decorating blogs out there but I think originally from The Thrifty Decor Chick. It really makes about the best sense to make my windows a focal point so that is what I did by creating longer drapes that I pieced together. The bottom is an actual window panel topped with some fabric. I then added the ribbon mostly to cover the glued seam and to tie in the green of my walls better. There is actually a small fleck of the green in a pattern on the top material and if you squint your eyes and strain real hard you can see it. In the true spirit of a mis-treatment I glued the two pieces together and didn't hem the fabric at the top. Just added drapery clips (Jo-Ann fabrics, 40% off!!) and hung them. The rods were from Hob Lob on clearance and were about 75% off the original price. yipee! I'm still not in love with the shears underneath but don't want to block the light as I have precious little! I think I may add bamboo blinds when I get some cash flow (haha, like that's gonna happen any time soon!).

This is a picture of the old walls/window treatments and also a view of the U G L Y partial walls with spindles. Hate these! But, I think I have an idea to make them 100% better but will have to be patient and wait for the time and money.

Here is a picture of the old window treatments.

Linking up today with:

Just Something I Whipped Up

Making the World Cuter Monday

It's So Very Creative from It's so Very Cheri

http://thediyshowoff.blogspot.com/

Just a box you say?

Recently my mother-in-law moved a couple of hours away, selling her house that was near us. In the process of cleaning out 20+ years of stuff, she gave me some landscaping lights that I was wanting. She had thrown them in this box that was getting discarded. Wow, can't believe this almost got thrown away. Oh, I gotta say there was some seriously sweet stuff that she got rid of. But, alas, she did not offer any of it to me...sigh.

It is a wooden box from, I don't know how long ago! The box sat in my garage for months cause I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it but new I couldn't throw it out! It was just 2 kool! I debated about using it for a box to hold wood for the fireplace.

One day, I started messing with it first by washing it out (It had sat in her garage for years!) then I told some pickling stain and whitewashed the box. Let it dry. I then bought some of those decorative balls made of branches to stack in the top. It's a pretty big box and didn't want to buy enough to fill the whole thing (being the cheapo that I am) so i filled the box with some foam.

So, it now has a new home on top of a 'knock down' wardrobe that I found at a sale for $25. The top of the wardrobe once looked bland, but now is grand!

Linking up to:

http://thepersimmonperch.blogspot.com/

http://betweennapsontheporch.blogspot.com/

Trash to Treasure Tuesday at Reinvented

http://linda-coastalcharm.blogspot.com/

http://pumpkinpatchdesigns.blogspot.com/