A New Look for the Livingroom

The last few weeks have been a whirlwind of activity. I have so many things I am working on that had to be put to the side. I last wrote about our huge undertaking to clean out the garage. It took us four hard days of cleaning, sorting, hauling and piling in a huge pile outside to go to the dump. I didn't take before photos because it was that bad! This is what it looks like now:

 I still need to haul the shelves downstairs and all the tools to be put on them plus various other small chores but it is close to being done. The huge pile on the left is our wood we use in our wood stoves. We probably have enough to last us through this coming winter (we have another big pile downstairs for the downstairs stove). This week we plan to get the floor painted and today we are getting plugins installed hopefully.

 

Yesterday our electricians arrived. I was expecting a short visit. Several plugs to be installed in the garage and a box replaced downstairs. Last night when they left they hadn't even touched the garage. 

Downstairs: one whole wall of boards removed, one section of ceiling destroyed, furniture out in the yard, piles of rubble everywhere, no electricity in my studio and I was told to not go near the bathroom when they left because it was 'hot'. I'm afraid of what I will be facing when they leave tonight!

Well on to what I really want to talk about. 

Sorry for the quality of the pictures but being on the southern slope, even on overcast days, the light can be quite bright in this room making pictures difficult.. 

We finally decided on what to do with the windows! 

We had talked of several things and nothing seemed to be right. 

Big curtains and curtain rods just wouldn't work with our windows. 

We tried the cinema curtain that I showed you in this post, and though it did work it only worked if we never moved our furniture. 

I thought about roman shades but I didn't want to lose any of our view. 

It's just that good! 

So finally after much discussion and looking we decided on these:

I think they are perfect! 

They fold out of the way when we don't need them, take little room and they look great in this room. I was really nervous waiting for them to arrive. I was sure they would look awkward and not fit in with the decor but they seem to be the perfect fit.

Added bonus, they block the light splendidly when needed. 

Since we sit on the southern slope of the mountain it can get quite bright in the summer time so this was a much needed feature.

What do you think of our solution?