The Design Slice: Curtain Change-up

If you couldn't tell by the title of my post today, I may be watching too much baseball lately. Last week Justin and I attended not one, not two, but three baseball games within six days. We went to a Cubs game with my parents on Sunday, then headed to the south side for a White Sox game on Wednesday with some friends and Friday night with more family. But that is unrelated to what I have for you today, the Curtain Change-up.

Sometimes after spending a lot of money, time, and effort decorating a room, I look at it and feel that it isn't quite right. Is the color slightly off? Did I buy the wrong area rug? Or is the furniture too big or too small for the space? It's only natural to always be evaluating, adjusting, and finessing a design/decor as you mature and your tastes change (heck, I do it all the time!). However, this is what I was feeling a couple months after the big Dining Room Decoranza of November 2009 (imagine a monster truck rally advertising voice, it was that big). (If you missed it and want to get caught up, read about it here, here, here, here, here, and here.)

I knew that it wasn't the table (I love the table!), the art was spot-on, and since I am already on the hunt for a new buffet console, I didn't consider that the just-not-right thing. So, all that was left were the curtains.

Before painting the dining room, I had these inexpensive panels from Ikea hanging up.

But after painting the dining room, I was bit by the DIY bug, and wanted to sew my own silk curtains. So, I locked these panels up in a far away place (known as the office) where they could have never been seen again. Well...they're back!

I had to bring them back into the space because I love their graphic pattern.

They add variety and texture to the wall with the window, which balances all that is happening on opposite wall.

So, what happened to the silk curtain panels I made? Now they live in the freshly painted living room! They look so luxe stacked on the ends and as you can see, we also hung up bamboo blinds to finish out framing the window. I love these particular ones, which are from JC Penney, because they have gorgeous texture and the dark espresso color pulls the paint color we chose for the dining room table into the room. (Previously we did not have any form of covering that we could pull down to block light or peepers.)