Now I remember, (part 2)

I went Windows (TM) shopping last night. I loved Anne's breakdown of neutral walls, pattern in the draperies and colour in the lamps and pillows and so on.

However.

Patterned draperies (or curtains) are nearly impossible to find. And whenever I did find some, I worried they were too "bedroomy."

Coloured lamps? and lampshades? Ha. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Sorry, that's a snarky laugh, not a happy one. Sears has coloured lamp bases and shades (pink, blue and purple) from a line by Mary-Kate and Ashley (not bad, actually, but 127.00 each). The best I can do is the Skimra lampshades at Ikea. Which, fortunately at least, we can afford.



I have long been in love with this fabric for curtains.


It's from Susan Sargent--and "special order" draperies from the fabric are now available. My window is 8 feet long. I've hung the pole at a ridiculous height of 88." According to these dimensions, I should get 4 pinch pleat panels (at 25" x 84", $180.00 each). In the rod pocket style, I could possibly get away with two (at 50"x 84" though, they'd look skimpy). These are $150.00 each. Utterly ridiculous.

I find it interesting to note, however, that I fell in love with this colour scheme of yellow, orange and green eons ago. I remember being in despair that I couldn't find anything. Now, even Ikea has orange Kassett boxes! Orange is on its way "out" I guess.

It's just all too depressing, really.
I went to Value Village last night to see what I could find in the way of draperies, artwork and so on. It wasn't pretty.

I guess the thing that really gets me is that when I first moved in, we fixed up the living room really nicely. Or so I thought.

We did a faux treatment on the walls I just loved. It was rag rolled by my husband and my mother and looked fantastic. I had a lovely multi-object display on the wall above the couch--plates and pictures laid out a la Martha Stewart (and everywhere, now, I've noticed). I sewed triple pinch pleated from a beautiful (but busy!) fabric for that ridiculous window. The fabric cost $200.00 and it took my mother and I a few months to sew them. When they were done, the two panels were different lengths! (Mom has them in her den, now).

Guess what?
You're in for a treat. Yep, I rounded up some pictures of that time, just for you. Unfortunately, the rag rolled faux treatment dows not show up in the pictures, ever.
These were taken in 2001.


(Look at the drapery fabric, not the sweeties in the chair.)

Here's another showing the arrangement of the wall over the couch. Funny how things seem much better in memory!



And then I had the couch professionally re-covered in a fabric that is hard to clean and shows every little thing. And it is green. (Much too green) I thought I was "restoring" the couch to some historically accurate past or something. I discovered much later I was simply repeating the colour scheme of the woman who had handed it down to us. A woman, mind you, we did not like. I hated that couch colour from the minute it came through the door in all its green majesty. It was a $2,000 mistake.

At that time, I thought "redecorating" the living room was the way to go. Too much HGTV made me decide upon "dark and elegant." Actually I never quite pulled off the "elegant" part--though dark definitely happened! (Oddly enough, the living room is at its darkest in the summer when the light bounces off brown or green grass and not the hghly reflective snow of winter.)

And so, we have lived in "the cave" ever since. Furniture has come and gone from this room. (Thankfully, mostly gone!).

Here's the lamented living room all tidied up.




You, know, I think I really can do better. This has been good. I've no need to mourn, anymore.