Those Damn Curtains

So if you remember from my OH SO INTERESTING AND SCINTILLATING curtain post, I was - am - trying to decide what curtains to get for the sitting room. We have no furniture there, and no plans to get furniture any time soon (sigh. but. but. but. it's actually been kind of nice having an empty room to use for whatever we need it, and we often end up plopping down on the floor to work on projects like painting pumpkins for Halloween, and using it for the Christmas tree and extra seating for Thanksgiving, so...while I want furniture in there, it's not all bad). On the one hand, picking curtains should be easy, because there is nothing to match...but on the other hand, since giant curtain panels are so expensive, I need to think of what the future furniture and rug MIGHT look like and try to match the imagined pieces. Also, the lack of furniture kind of demands that the curtains be show-stoppers.

On the last post (and in the Facebook comments) the gray and the orange curtains were the winners by far, with about equal votes going to each.  Since the gray and the orange were my top picks also, YOU GUYS BASICALLY DIDN'T HELP. If the internet could just come together for a consensus, that would be super helpful. (Say what? People agreeing on the internet? Never.)

To hopefully help me decide, I went ahead and ordered one of each of the panels, to see what I thought of them in person. And, of course, what YOU thought of them in person. Virtually in person.

Note: In these pics, nearly everything in the middle section except for the buffet is temporary (hi, Christmas deer!), so don't worry about "matching" the curtains to that section.

Also note: THESE ARE TOO DANG SHORT. I KNOW. UGH. I measured like three times but still came up short. These are 108" panels, so I'll order the 120" and hem them next time.

And in slightly different lighting (and minus the Xmas decor)...

And a few with the orange panel closer to the shelves...

So, what do you think? Orange or gray? Or back to the drawing board to look at some of the original other options?

Other, small, middling updates:

Carys got a big-girl bed! She was in her crib-turned-toddler-bed until last week. I KNOW. She was way too big for it. We had a bed coming to us, but needed a truck to go get it. It all came together Thanksgiving weekend and we brought it home. She loves it. I am planning on painting or staining it (it's raw wood) but probably not until this summer. I did put a rail on it because the kid does dance moves in her sleep.

We got curtains in the dining room! I just went SUPER cheap, plain white in here. We're talking like $16 for all four panels cheap. I didn't want to do anything big or expensive in here until we know what we're doing with the sitting room - since the rooms open to each other, they need to coordinate. I need to steam them to get the wrinkles out, but until I do that, here they are in their wrinkled glory. I hung them with the curtain clips versus sliding them onto to the rod - the clips give them a little bit of a modern touch (and I think they hang better).

Lastly, I also took the cream/orange frosted glass shades off of the sitting room lights and replaced them with Edison bulbs. I LOVE IT. I still would like to get some sort of new light fixture here, but taking those early 90's shades off made a world of difference.  I am going to either paint or wrap that white base to hide it, but need to figure out what will hold up to the heat (maybe that Rustoleum high-heat paint that I used for the fireplace?). 

As a reminder, here's what they looked like before:

If you scroll back up to the dining room curtain post, you can see I also removed the matching orange/cream frosted glass shade from that pendant light. And then when I was trying to look for a replacement at Home Depot, I dropped it and it shattered everywhere and I was completely mortified and we didn't find anything to replace it, so....WHOOPS. That's pretty much my life, though, so....