There are 50 windows in my house. I love how natural light floods the rooms during the day, casting a luminous glow to the most mundane objects. I love having the picturesque scenes of the preserve that I can view from the master bathroom, the neighbor's pond from the solarium, and the lush lawns from the dining room. I don't love that I am probably committing the crime of indecent exposure when I get out of the shower, run out of the bathroom and into my bedroom for a change of clothes, or pump breastmilk downstairs while I work at my computer on the breakfast table.
I need to cover our windows. Not all of them, mind you, just those at which I am currently indecently exposing myself while I live my life.
Window treatments are spendy. Here is an illustration of why I would have to sell my children in order to afford curtains for this house. Our friends and neighbors, Carl and Gergana, went shopping at Ethan Allen for furniture and the five window treatments. They picked out furniture for their entire house, and window treatments for five windows. The window designer went to their house and measured. When Carl and Gergana went back to the shop, the designer was pleased as plum to tell them that her estimate came in low. The price tag: $20,000. Carl and Gergana were somewhat surprised that the furniture and window treatments were going to cost that much, but on second thought, they had picked out a lot of furniture, so perhaps it was a good "deal" after all.
"All that furniture and curtains, too, huh?" they said to the designer.
The designer, perhaps feelings of excitement dwindling, replied that, actually, no, it was $20,000 for just the window treatments. That's $5,000.00 per window!
"Are these curtains made of gold threads?" asked Carl, as he and Gergana fought to suppress laughter .
Carl and Gergana have lovely window treatments in their house, but they did not come from Ethan Allen. And at $5K times 50 windows, neither will mine.
We have lived in our house for almost three years. Most of the windows are still bare. The ones that have "treatments" are "temporary" treatments until I can find better ones. Here is the problem: I have commitment issues in matters of home decorating. Compounding the problem is that I have a terrible eye for home decorating. Gergana protests this and insists that because I can put together a fabulous outfit, I certainly must be capable of decorating my house. "You know how to dress, so this is the same but it's your house that you're dressing!" she once said. I beg to differ.
Randy begs to differ, too. He is aware of my commitment phobia and terrible eye, and he, regretfully, agrees that my fears are well-founded. I have made so many decorating misjudgments that we have taken to giving the occurences names, the way historians name natural disasters.
For example, there was the Great Bathroom Remodel of 2002. After we got married, I moved into the townhouse that Randy already owned. In my attempt to make HIS house OUR house, I started to remodel. My first project was painting the half-bath on the first floor. I had envisioned a room that evoked scenes of a beach -- ocean blue walls, golden sand colored vanity, sun-shaped mirror. I was unhappy with the present vanity, but because it was an oddly shaped corner unit, it was very hard to find a replacement. Therefore, Randy had to build one to my specifications so I could paint it to fit my beachy decor. I was supremely confident that my remodel would have magnificent results.
The resulting bathroom was hideous. The blue was more of an electric blue than a beachy blue, and the "golden sand" looked more like the shade of yellow used to paint lines on the road. No description that I could write could adequately convey just how ugly this room turned out. Let's just say that being inside that bathroom induced migraines. You know in Trading Spaces when some homeowners cry during the great reveal because their formerly acceptable room has been converted into a freakish concoction of all things repulsive? Randy and I cried like that everytime we went into that bathroom. The room was such an eyesore that after a while we never used that bathroom with the light on. We were embarassed to have guests use it, and when they did heed the call of nature, we apologized profusely for the loud and tacky surroundings. Yet we had so many other rooms to work on that re-doing that half-bath had to go to the bottom of the list. It had already had its disastrous turn.
If the half bath experience were the extent of my poor decorating choices, I would proceed with decorating this house undeterred. But there was also the Dining Room Furniture Fiasco of 2003, which set off the Series of Unfortunate Furniture Purchases. There was also the Lighting Fixture Debacle, which had several aftershocks: A chandelier that never left its box. A chandelier that took forever to install and then didn't work. A chandelier that took about five hours to install because the 400 pieces of capiz were individually wrapped and taped. Floor lamps that were either too short or too tall. Pottery Barn lamp shades that we drove to three different states hunting down only to realize later that I had bought three different shades of white, which was totally noticeable when you turned on the lamps. I won't even get into the accessories that I goofed up on. That would take up an entirely separate blog.
At this house, I have so many rooms yet to furnish/decorate that I can't afford to screw up and have to redo any of them. Paralyzed by past decorating mistakes, I just sit at my computer writing this blog, taking breaks to look out the window to take in the scenery. Oh, right, I must do something about these windows.
One of the rooms in our house is furnished entirely with unfirtunate furniture purchases. I can relate to your experiences.
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