Not a fan

I had a lovely weekend. The weather was gorgeous, I got about a million things crossed off my to-do list, I spent a nice chunk of time baking, and I am generally pleased with the world. The parts I did not enjoy? The purchasing of curtains and the installation of a carpet runner.

First of all, the curtains. Have you bought curtains recently? I had no idea they were so expensive. And I'm talking about the cheapo curtains you'll find at say, Target or Bed Bath & Beyond, not fancy pants decorator curtains. I found one style I really liked for our living room, then did the math (six panels at $x each would be...) and about fell over. I did not buy those particular curtains. No, I went for all unlined, hey, do they have anything I like in the clearance bin curtains. I'm not finished, but there are now curtains up in the living room and dining room, and balloon shades waiting to be hung in the spare bedroom. It's a start.

Living room:

Dining room:

Notice that they are not tied back, because curtains do not come with ties. No, you have to buy those separately, or install permanent metal ones on your wall. I'll deal with that later, I think. Some days it seems like it would be really, really useful if I knew how to sew.

That brings us to the carpet runner. One of the things we noticed first off when we moved in was that Seamus has a hard time on the wood stairs. Then Becky told me a story about how her someone she knows took a really bad tumble on hardwood stairs, and we knew we had to get a runner. I fall down the stairs regularly enough that it just seemed prudent. For people who don't know me, yes, really, I fall down that much. I just do.

It is probably too sweeping to say I hate all DIY, but man, there is some stuff I just do not want to do myself. There was the whole caulking debacle, plus a painting related one I didn't even talk about here, and a couple of other projects that have cropped up recently. Now we can add "installing stair rods" to that list. The carpet itself has been up for a while. To be honest, I can't really complain about that part, because I didn't do all that much. Although I did manage to step on a tack strip while wrestling the carpet into place and puncture my toe through my shoe, leading to anxious googling of "tetanus." But no, it was the stair rods that gave us the most trouble. We didn't have enough room to operate on the bannister side of the stairs, and the wall side wasn't much better, and it was one long, miserable process. At least now it is done, and it looks nice.

Behold the fruit of our labor: