Kitchen Window Shade Swap

Today is February 16th, 2012. Other than my post introducing our little Javi, my last blog was September 26, 2011! And to say that posting was sporadic before then would be stretching the truth a bit. The reality is that from the minute I got pregnant I was exhausted, and that mind-numbing exhaustion never let up until I was about 36 weeks along. And even then, I think it was more out of sheer desperation - the baby's room still wasn't even close to done and it simply HAD to be done. :-)  And now that the little man has arrived, there are more pressing things to be done... like a shower. And maybe food. :-) And sleep if I am lucky.

Anyways, all that to say, I actually did accomplish some projects last year that have been on my list for forever, so I'll be slowly sharing them as I find the time. And I will try to not fill up every post talking about my little guy and how fast he is growing and how awesome it is when he smiles. I really will try. :-)

OK, on to the point of this post. Remember our kitchen?



How it used to look like the inside of a tree, and then I painted the paneling and it looked significantly better? Well, I have been making some more simple updates to this room, while not spending  a ton of money. The plan is to completely redo this room in the next couple of years, so my goal is just to make the room more liveable and maybe a little prettier in the meantime.

We inherited this beautiful window shade with the house. It was perfectly faded and cracked tan plastic. Definitely vintage. And Gorgeous. :) Or not.





I hated it from the get-go, but this window is six feet wide, and six foot wide window treatments are not cheap. Here's where Ollie's enters the scene and makes my day. While browsing there one day as I do periodically, I found an entire rack of oversized window shades. Like dis.



Lovely roman shades that normally would run about 100 buckaroos. Ollie's price? $20! Sold. So I shoved that baby in the back of my two door grand am - if I remember correctly I had to roll down a window to get it home but I was determined. Then I installed that six foot shade all by myself. Girl power!

It actually wasn't that difficult. I put the brackets up first, obviously, and then did a bit of a balancing act to attach the shade. And I loved the difference.



I installed this shade as high as I could above the window to make it look even bigger, and also, I am not going to lie, to cover up some more of that honey colored trim. :) Oh, and an unexpected bonus? The new shade blocks a lot more light  than the old one. Which was awesome during the blistering summer we had. Oh wait, maybe it wasn't that hot... I was pregnant and hot all.the.time. But still, it was nice. Here's a side by side comparison.



Yep. Definitely better. Better looking and better working. :) Now to do something about that trim...