~~~~I'LL TAKE CURTAIN NUMBER TWO~~~~ Dealing With An Un-Centered Window

~OUR UN-CENTERED WINDOW~

(Our Den Today)

I love my home!

I do!  I do!

When my hubby and I first laid eyes on our La Chaumière de Briarwood we fell in love with her and nothing has changed over the past nineteen plus years.  She had great bones and lots of simple charm and we still absolutely adore her!  As the years have passed we've loved caring for her and hope to always call her home.

 ~CHRISTMAS 1992~

Thank Heaven For Change

(Close Your Mouth!)

In July of 1992 our two-story beauty was 22 years old.  She was built in 1970 and when we signed the loan papers we knew from the beginning she had a few serious cosmetic flaws.  Her three baths were extremely dated (um...how about the entire home!) and she still had the original builder-grade wallpaper hanging in her entry and stairwell.  There was even wallpaper on some of the ceilings, too!  The walls in the den were layered with a very dark paneling and the one window in the room was UN-CENTERED.  That window was nothing short of a decorator's nightmare from the get-go!

Now...I'm being BRAVE showing you the picture you see above.  As a family we have laughed over this photo more times than I can say.  (All that HUNTER GREEN and RED makes me feel a tad bit blue!)  I loved the cotton Priscilla curtains we hung at that un-centered window and as you can see our dreamy (?) console television served as a piece of furniture.  No matter what I tried or how I arranged or rearranged our furniture nothing has ever fit underneath that window.  Back then we had a couch and a love-seat and even the love-seat was too wide to fit below the window. 

 ~ROMANTIC HOMES MAGAZINE~

October 2006

When Romantic Homes Magazine came out and shot parts of our home (and Gathering/Train Cases) for their September and October (2006) edition(s) thankfully much had changed in regards to our decor!

 ~NEW WINDOW - OLD PROBLEM~

But that crazy widow was still proving to be a problem even after more than a decade.  Seating of any kind, a single chair, two chairs or even a sofa looked out of sorts when placed right in front of that window.  

~CHRISTMAS 2010~

Pretty But Crowded

Finally in 2009 (I think) I purchased this vintage French Dresser and moved it into the room.  But, the room was overly crowded and one could barely walk between the sofa and the dresser's edge.  Besides...I really didn't WANT the dresser in there to begin with!  Still, I had settled on a fairly standard arrangement...the sofa faced the fireplace and the two chairs faced the sofa...

~RE-POSITION THOSE WINDOW TREATMENTS~

Easy As 1-2-3

With the opening up of one of the walls in our den (read that post here) we were back to the problem of having an un-centered window because I REALLY wanted to place our sofa on that wall.  It was then I remembered a show I saw on CREATE TV (or maybe it was HGTV!) that involved the "HOW- TO'S" on camouflaging an un-centered window.  It ended up being a fairly 'easy' fix for us and honestly I'm amazed we didn't change things up long before now!

Here's what we did!

 ~LEFT SIDE OF WINDOW~

Our demon-window has plantation shutters (which we love) and the center is right in the middle of the four panels.  Following the pointers on the show I had my guy rehang the curtain rod (he had to extend it) as if there were six panels instead of four.  The left curtain panel hangs over the left shutter panels (or half of the window).  The right side of the window (which is open) is shown as the middle.  The right curtain panel hangs over an empty wall!

 ~WALL BEHIND THE CURTAIN~

Are you following me?  In other words behind the curtain panel on the right there is only a wall...no real window!  Because my curtains are so full you can't even tell there is a window behind the left panel and a wall behind the right!  Now am I making sense?

Until our new wood floors are laid in a couple of weeks I really don't know HOW our furniture will finally end up!  I do know that with the addition of the big black monster (a new flat screen TV) we will have an entirely new problemo on our hands. :(  I hope it doesn't take twenty years to find a way to hide the ugly thing! 

Hope your day is wonderful!

Love to you...

~I CAN SEE CLEARLY NOW~

~A REAL PANE~

OK...I'm trying not to be melodramatic here...but I'm nearly faint!!!

Our old den window was finally removed yesterday and what I've affectionately :( called the DEMON WINDOW has been installed in it's place!!!

 I'm totally drunk with JOY!

 I feel like I've been yapping about it for the longest time and now it's done!   

~YIPEEEEEE SKIPEEEEE~

~TALENTED MEN AT WORK~

(Out Comes the Old!)

Unless you have a Do-It-Yourself-er hubby like I do you can't possibly understand how incredible it was to have two hired guys come out and actually do the work to install this window.  My Mr.AGPMan hires NOTHING done!  I mean NOTHING!  But...given all the trouble we've had getting a non-damaged-window delivered to us he was more than happy to have someone else do the labor for him!  Besides, with work, school and studying he just didn't have the time to devote to finishing the job himself!

~AMAZING WORK~

(In Goes the New!)

I think the two installers thought I was NUTS for taking so many pictures of them (I told them I like to scrapbook and "stuff"!) :) :) :)  They did an AWESOME JOB!

Next thing on our redo list you ask??

Aside from hiring a brick mason to come out and brick up our old backdoor we have concrete work that needs to be done and several more windows to install!

 ~MORE TO GO~

See the window at the top right in the photo above?  It's next on the list!  I would LOVE to have had them all done at once, but I'm a pay-as-you-go kind of gal!  I hate window mail (tee hee)!

And there you have  it!  One BORING POST for a glorious Tuesday! 

Hope your day is FAB!

Love to you...