Curtains in Person

I couldn't think of a better title for this post.  Sorry guys.  Creativity is running a little low right now.
As I promised, I finally took a picture of the curtains that I hung in our bedroom.

I think this is the best snapshot I got that shows the room in perspective.  This is the view you would see as you walk into the room from the hallway.  Forgive the pillow that I shoved under the bed.  I didn't think it would be seen.  Oops.  Now it just looks like a pile of dirty clothes.  It's an extra pillow people.  I'm really trying to keep things clean around here.
Here is the pattern close up.  I never got around to ironing them so I picked the least wrinkled spot to zoom in on.

Overall I am really happy with them.  I like them open better, because then they are more "gathery".  All of our windows are apparently wide, and when the curtains are closed they almost look like they are the wrong size.  I am hoping someday to add bamboo blinds to all of the windows throughout the house, and so once I do that (give me like 5 years or so) maybe I will just keep the curtains open all the time.
But...did you notice anything else new in the first picture?  We finally hung our wedding picture!

I've had this picture since Christmas.  Because we were in the middle of building our house, we never hung it at the old place.  Then, when we were trying to find a place for it in the new house, I was inspired by this idea and wanted to make one of my own for either side.  I would hang the three pieces in matching frames in the living room.  Then that DIY project bombed...majorly.  So this little guy was left without a home for another couple of months.  Finally, we found it a home in the bedroom and I am really happy with where we have put it.  And honestly, I think everyone else will be happy with it as well, as it is a way to keep one of our lovey-dovey personal memories in the bedroom, instead of forcing everyone who comes to the house to stare at us.  I don't think I ever convinced myself that it was okay to put wedding pictures, especially wedding pictures of this scale (it is 16x20), in the most public area of the house.  Regardless, it's up, and that's one more step in the right direction of making our house into our home.

New Curtains

When we moved into our house in March, one of the first absolute musts that we had to do to our house was install curtains in our bedroom.  I don't think I need to do much explanation here.  However, I (of course) wanted to find the perfect curtains that set the mood of the bedroom just right.  Not that mood, guys, come on.  I was going for relaxing.  Anyway, because we couldn't wait around long enough for me to make up my mind, we hung the curtains that were originally meant for the slider in our bedroom.  They match the curtains that are in our living room.  Remember those?
Byron made me promise him in a solemn oath a couple of months ago that I would choose permanent curtains for our bedroom within one year.  Seems awfully generous, but if you know how the process has gone for me choosing a rug, from Byron's perspective, he was putting the pressure on me.
My inspiration bedroom is the one found here.  I love the soothing gray color, the birch trees, and the pops of gold, though I would replace the pops of raspberry with gray blue.  So soothing - I am falling asleep just thinking about it.
I thought that if I made my own curtains, I could potentially find an inspiration piece that would start the bedroom off in the right direction.  So off I went, and Byron actually came with me (!) to his favorite store, JoAnn Fabrics, searching for some inspiration fabric.  We actually found quite a few choices that we liked.

But our favorite was...

We both loved the steely grays and pops of gold.  The gray was actually a mix of brown and gray, so I guess you would call that taupe, but I'm not sure how well the picture shows that.  I loved the all-over pattern, and I think Byron liked that it was on the masculine side (read:  not floral...I have a hard time convincing him that he likes floral).  There was only one problem.  I wanted to keep thinking about it.  In all fairness, I still needed to measure our windows to get the right amount of yardage, and I thought that poor Byron had lasted that long in the fabric store that the least I could do was to not put him through 30 more minutes of trying to place a custom order.  I would come back.  But before I could, the thoughts crept into my mind.
Let's revisit our bedroom...

These are old photos so please forgive the color imbalance.  And that's not our real bedspread - our real bedspread is actually more of a sage green and dusty aqua paisley.  So that's blue walls, purple artwork, green & aqua bedding, tan-ish carpeting, and now I want to add taupe & gold curtains?  I know that transforming my bedroom will be a long process, not one that I will be completing quickly.  Can I really live through all the chaos and will I even make it to my end product?  Um, no.
So there I was one night, browsing my favorite website West Elm, and aha!  What should appear before my lovely eyes but these beauties.  And they were even on sale!

The rest of the conversation went something like this...
Katie:  Byron, I have something to show you.
Byron:  What.
K:  Do you like these curtains?
B:  Yes.
K.  Okay.
[Curtains were ordered.]
So impulsive...so unlike me.  And I picked them out in like two months, not twelve.  I am so ahead of schedule.  The curtains arrived and have made a great new addition to our bedroom.  I will get pictures and show them off soon.  I mean, I will actually iron the curtains, get pictures, and show them off soon!