The Good, the Bad, and the Ridiculously (time-consuming, expensive... yet) Ugly

Well, let's get right to what you want to hear about, OK? Because there's no use pretending that you're all that interested in the good.  You'd rather hear about the bad and the ugly, admit it. Well you're getting 2 for 1 with the following pictures of my latest (perhaps last?) DIY project. They are indeed both BAD and most definitely UGLY. So ugly they are now in the trash. (No green comments, please. You'd have to see them to realize how unrecycleable they are...)

Maybe first you should see my inspiration. I am not super creative, but I am usually a first-class copycat. So I googled 'painted curtains' and found this post. I have the same Target curtains, and the pictures looked exactly like I wanted mine to look - so I had my willing "craft assistants" tape all NINE of my family room curtain panels for me. (Winston on the right, and my visiting son-in-law Nathan on the left.... Nathan loves doing projects for his favorite mother-in-law...especially if it's the night before he leaves...and very late at night!)

I went ahead and splurged on 3 bottles of fabric paint because, after all, I did have 9 panels.



It took every last drop to get ONE SINGLE PANEL painted. It might have been because I used disposable foam brushes, which the never-wrong-internet said would be perfect for the job.

Here are the other 8 panels hanging in  my carport, expertly taped and waiting their turn. My plan was just to do one after the other until I hung them up in my family room later that day - my family room which would eventually be as gorgeous as this one.  (Note that she sewed her stripes on... Which means she obviously has more discretionary time than me....Or a lot more smarts! Most likely the latter.)

I don't have a picture of Alex, my painting assistant, but he did mention to me that he thought the paint was going to show through the back of the curtains. (Alex is smarter than his mom.) It definitely showed through, but I figured we could line them (next year...or the year after...). Plus they are on the back doors that line our pool deck, so maybe I wouldn't care. And it was dark when we put them up so my biggest concern was just whether the yellow/gold was too much with my green walls (It was...)

 Turns out my biggest concern shouldn't have been the color... cuz when daylight came, we noticed a bigger concern. You can see every doggone paint stroke from the blasted, paint-eating foam brushes.

Moral of the story? Next time I get that creative urge (sometimes confused with discontent...) I will just do something cheaper and fail-proof, and more temporary.  Like move furniture.

 

I realize no one will be able to muster even an ounce of sympathy for me when I say that my living room is too big (whine, whine..) but it has been very difficult to figure out how to place my furniture in this room. But I keep trying. Because my husband enjoys the thrill of never knowing where the couch is. (This is especially fun in the middle of the night!)

My pictures are grainy (I need you..and your camera...Lea!) but you can see my idea was to try to create little "areas" within the big room.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It feels good to be blogging again. Even if my impetus was to vent over the stupid striped curtains.

And did you notice I didn't even try to make any excuses for my continued absence? I'm tempted to blame it on a visit from these guys... (but they were only here for four short days, so I guess my multi-month sabbatical is not wholly their fault.)