Do I Dare Make a Decision on Window Treatments?

I have no problem deciding to paint a room orange but am terrible on selecting that perfect shade of orange.  I am fine with taking a Sharpie to a wall but the first mark will take me a week to initiate.  In other words, I am horrible with taking that first step which is so odd considering my bold tastes as of late (i.e. mohawk haircut).  The leap of faith is the scariest part of the design process for me but I know it must be done.

Aside from pulling the trigger on my decision decisions, it’s the small details that lead me to maximum overload.  For example, I have lived with bare windows in my music room and guest room for two years now.  We have solar shades in the windows to block light which are all well and good but they don’t take the place of curtains/drapes.  Now that I found a seamstress to implement my design ideas, I can now finally have the drapes I envisioned….well at least for the music room since I don’t dream cheap.

As well evidenced if you follow me on Twitter, I have a thing for Jonathan Adler.  Some people are groupies for athletes, while others adore rock stars.  I have a thing for designers and chefs.  Nate Berkus?  HELLO!  He is my Tom Jones and while I wouldn’t throw a pair of underwear at him if I saw him in person, I may start to squeal like a school girl who just saw Justin Timberlake.  Same with Ina Garten or Sarah Moulton.  But there is a special place in my heart for Jonathan Adler.  I would d.i.e.  if  I met him in person.  I once thought I saw him in New York once and stalked him for three blocks until I realized I was following a rather manly looking woman (no joke!).

Jonathan is a demi-god when it comes to mixing colors, patterns and trim with wonderful effect.  While I can’t afford his rugs or furniture, I do own a few pieces of his pottery and dish sets.  In any case, I imagine that if he was to do curtains/drapes, they would be beautifully executed with fun trim or a funky design.  Timeless with hint of whimsy is what I would think he would do.  So it shocked me that  I came across a set of curtains that reminded me of what J.A. would do if he was designing for a tween:

Jonathan Adler "Lite" ....well sorta

Photo Credit: www.PBTeen.com

Well to be honest, this is what Pottery Barn does when designing for a tween/teen through its PB Teen collection.  However, the crisp white curtains, the use of ribbon and the simply design echo what J.A. would have done I believe.  So using this as inspiration, I have asked my seamstress to modify a pair of  Ikea grommet curtains with navy grosgrain ribbon to achieve a similar effect for marginal cost.  I hope to have them in two weeks to show you.

So now with curtains in place, I now get to struggle with the window hardware.  The room has three windows with two pretty much eating the entire south wall.  Decision time…do I use one rod to expand across both windows or two smaller rods over each window?  My gut tells me one rod across both windows for a total of 100 inches but would love to hear what you all think. 

As for the actual hardware, I am pretty sure (so much so I am going to go buy them tonight) that I will be using these rods from West Elm:

Modern Balance Rod from West Elm

Photo Credit: http://www.WestElm.com

I think they are wonderfully clean and simple, but with a hint of modernity to them.  They whisper rather than scream clean lines in my opinion, which makes them perfect for curtains that you want to be the center of attention.  So next, I just need to decide if I want to use a drapery hook or a tie back for the curtains, but that can be saved for another day.

Today, I relax knowing that I have leveled the mountains that were once mole hills.  I now can move on to what color to paint the room……ahhh I see another mountain forming as I type this.