When In Rome...

Ever have a weekend that just doesn't seem to go exactly as planned? That's exactly what happened to me this weekend.

In my Friday post, I mentioned to you lovely readers that I had oodles of plans for the weekend, including sprucing up the house for spring and getting out to do a little shopping with my birthday cash.

Well, when I woke up Saturday morning with every intention of gettin' to work, the first thing I noticed was that I couldn't breathe through my nose. And I had pounding headache. And in spite getting plenty of sleep, I felt exhausted. Basically, I had a bad sinus infection.

So, all those weekend plans I made were destroyed. I kept telling myself during the day that after 1 more nap, surely I could gather enough energy to run to at least a couple of stores and poke around...but nope, it never happened. And besides, I don't think other happy shoppers would want to hear me sneeze-and-blow my way up and down the aisles. So, all in all, I spent about 75% of the weekend in bed. Boo.

Thankfully, I did run out to a few places Friday night right after work, and I walked away from that with a few necessities and a few treasures. More on the treasures later. For now, I want to talk about the "necessities". Well, at least what was a necessity to ME.

Remember our lovely closet makeover that I completed the other week? I mentioned at the time that I purchased (on Clearance) a bamboo roman shade from Lowe's to cover the window in the closet and give us a little privacy. It looks like this...

Well, since Joey hung that shade, I have fallen in love with it more and more. And I kept telling myself that I needed to go back to Lowe's and see if they had additional shades on clearance (and in the right sizes) that I could use on the other windows in our bedroom, which are currently covered by the $3.00 pull down shades we put up when we first moved into the house...


The 3 windows that run across the wall of our bedroom are each 24 inches wide. The windows are old and most standard-sized window coverings don't come in 24 inch widths. We had to buy these pull down shades in a larger size and have them cut at Lowe's (for free) to the size we actually needed.


So, I crossed my fingers that I could find these bamboo shades in the right size and made my way to Lowe's to find the blinds/shades that were still marked on clearance. I took stock of what was remaining (as the shelves were getting pretty empty). And I found the particular shade I wanted in a few different sizes: 4 shades at 23X72 inches, 2 shades at 27X72 inches, 4 shades at 31X72 inches, and 2 shades at 35X72 inches.

I grabbed 3 of the 4 shades that were 23X72 inches...

The exact shade I bought is labeled as a Privacy Matchstick Roman Shade in the color "Cocoa".


Joey hung them for me on Sunday. I love the change. You can't see through them (hence, privacy), but they don't make the room pitch black. A sparkle of light shines through them.


I mentioned above that technically the windows were 24 inches wide, but I bought shades that were 23 inches wide. This works out OK with our old-school windows because they have a white wood frame that trims around the upper and lower panes of glass - shrinking the actual width of the glass to about 23 inches. So, the shade still covers all of the glass leaving just a little bit of white frame showing on either side.


Joey screwed the shades directly into the upper frame of the window. One thing I do love about our old windows is that they are deep enough to hang shades completely inside the frame of the window. Some of the newer styles of houses/windows don't allow for this.


In addition to the 3 shades above, I also bought 1 of the 27X72 inch shades for the other closet window. So, now all 5 windows in the room have the same shades.


Did I mention I love the difference from the old to the new? I do! The dark brown color adds warmth. The bamboo (or "matchstick") material adds texture. And the white window trim really pops against the color.



Total Cost?

3 - 23X72 inch shades @ $11.98 each = $35.94
1 - 27X72 inch shade = $13.98
Total = $47.92

And if you include the shade already purchased for the other closet, the total is about $61.90 for all 5 windows! I'm stunned. Truly. Normally these shades are around $30 each. Other stores sell these for around $50-$60 EACH. This deal was a steal!

What d'ya think?

Now to find some pretty curtain panels to add some beauty/pattern/color to the window...