updates to the living room: art & curtains.

i didn’t grow up with window coverings, mostly because i grew up in the country, but i do like curtains on windows if they are done right. i love the idea of adding a fun texture, color, or print thru a curtain, & that is what i set out to do when shopping for our living room.

i wanted something that was fun & could give us some privacy if we needed (especially on the front window) & also could be lined, if necessary, to help keep out the winter chill. when i started my search, i toyed with the idea of making curtains, but then i considered that our ceilings are vaulted & two of the three windows are big (over 80 inches), i scrapped the idea of making them. i figured it would cost me way more in fabric than just buying curtains, plus i risked having to have a seam in the middle of the fabric. no dice.

so, the search began. it didn’t take long for me to figure out that finding six 108 inch panels would could cost a small fortune. i have been a fan of west elm for a long time (our bed frame & sheet-set-turned-duvet-cover are from here) & we recently got a store downtown (yay!). i have found myself finding more & more things that i like for the house at west elm, including the perfect set of curtains!

i found these scribble lattice curtains & instantly fell in love. {spoiler alert: these are the ones i bought!} they were fun, grey, & long enough. i held out for about a month or so because even though these curtains were priced well, i needed six of them. i finally headed down to the west elm store last month to see if they had them in stock. well, there weren’t any in stock, but {the good news!} all curtains happened to be on sale plus free shipping (i also had a 10% off coupon west elm sent me when we moved). i ordered them on the spot. {the bad news} they were backordered for three weeks. the original shipping date i was told would have had them delivered this week. luckily, they were shipped early & we were able to hang them the night before our housewarming party two weekends ago {much to aaron’s dismay. he was a trooper though & since i made it easy & marked & measured everything out, he couldn’t say no!}.

curtain rods, surprise, surprise, can also be expensive, especially since we had two long windows. we had a curtain rod left over from our old living room which would fit the small window, so i just bought two matching ones! {the rods aren’t available online, but i have seen them in stores recently. the rods are a dark grey metal with “glass” balls on the ends.}

we hung the rods two inches from the ceiling & it makes the ceilings look even taller! seriously, it doesn’t seem like it would make a difference, but it does. plus, the curtains pool just a few inches on the floor (which is what i wanted), so no hemming for me!

i apologize for some of the dark pictures. ideally i would have taken these in the morning when the sun is shining thru the living room windows, but we haven’t had much sun lately. {surprise, surprise, i know.}

we also decided it was time to hang some art in the living room (as i was tired of the coupons being hung on the walls & worrying about the art being stacked on the living room floor). we had a gallery wall in our last living room & used many of the same pictures, but made the centerpiece this convex mirror i picked up at, you guessed it, west elm. {it isn’t available online anymore, but there was one left at my west elm store – the display – & i talked them into selling it to me!}

i also tweaked the wall arrangement right above the entryway table. the mr. & mrs. lower artwork was originally also hung on the wall, but it didn’t look right – maybe it was the frames, or perhaps grouping in odd numbers. i am thinking about hanging the letter L in this arrangement too, but for now it works.

we have lots of art {you should see the stacks we have stored in the office!} & i thought this corner would be a good place to display some more pictures. the large koi used to sit on our mantle at the townhouse & the three smaller pictures are a mix of some of our favorite engagement & wedding pictures.

art & curtains up. it finally feels like we are living here!

have you hung art or curtains recently?

M