Hello friends, and Happy Monday to you! I hope you all had a most marvelous weekend. Our kids were on sleepovers, so Mr. Sugarplum and I had some good grown-up time. Do you have a strong urge to use every bad word in your vocabulary when your kids aren’t around, or do I just have an affinity for the F-word?! I drug Mr. SP jean shopping with me, but came up empty-handed. Maybe it’s because we’d just inhaled a platter of tacos and cheese dip. Mexican food and dressing rooms are not a good mix.
You probably think I forgot about the Family Room makeover, since the last update to the project list was in November! Or maybe you forgot we were even giving the Family Room a makeover?! Click here for the progress so far. We’ll wait while you catch up.
Next on the list was addressing the windows. They have standard faux-wood blinds on them for privacy, but look like someone waxed off their eyebrows.
Curtains were out of the question since the sofa backs up against the windows. I toyed with the idea of making pelmet boxes like in Babygirl’s Room, but in the end, decided the room needed some texture, and it’s hard to beat inexpensive matchstick blinds.
The ceiling is a high pitch, so I mounted the blinds outside the windows, and 8-inches above the inset, so they’d appear taller.
To keep costs down, I used off-the-shelf sizes from Lowes (Home Depot’s sizes didn’t fit my windows). The blinds aren’t as wide as I’d like, but at one-third the cost of custom-sized, I’ll live with it! We discovered there is zero privacy with just the matchsticks, so we left the white blinds underneath for evening use. And since we only lower the white blinds, there’s no need for the matchsticks to reach the bottom of the window, thus saving us even more money by buying the shorter length.
Our old Fiddle Leaf Friend had an untimely death, but so-far-so-good on this one. We named her Phoebe Fiddle Leaf, and talk to her regularly, in hopes of that making a difference. (We’re using a large basket from HomeGoods as the planter.)
We hung matchsticks in the Breakfast Room, too. It really helps with the flow and cohesiveness of the two rooms.
How about some Before & After goodness so you can see the big impact made by these inexpensive little blinds.
And another one bites the dust on the ole To-Do List! Did you get any projects crossed off this weekend? Did you drop any F-bombs while doing it?
Update: See the final reveal of this room here.
They look great! And I LOVE that huge plant.
Those made such a difference! I've been contemplating buying some from Lowe's so it's always good to see them in someone else's home before pulling the trigger 🙂 They look great!
Looks so good, potty mouth 🙂 I love how it's all coming together.
Looks great! I love the texture they add to the space!
What kind of plant is on your coffee table?
I love the "matchsticks". We have them in our Great Room, and I just love the spicy look they give it.
Oh and I almost always eat Mexican before shopping, because there's an awesome restaurant right by the mall! It really shouldn't be allowed to be there…
I love Phoebe!! And the new "eyebrows" are lookin' good!!
I love matchstick blinds! I used some in our breakfast nook and am about ready to order more for my bedroom and bathroom. Overstock has just about every size imaginable, and I think they were even a little better priced than HD or Lowe's. Great look, but I love your huge fig even more! In addition to you, I have online friends in Denver and Maryland who have recently found big ones at HD. I'm stalking my store every few days…nothing yet!
No F bombs, but a few crafty things. Also, three day weekend for us, means me counting the hours to bedtime tonight. I love these little ones, but I'm wiped. 11 1/2 hours to go!
Mr. SP gets husband of the year award for going jean shopping with you! I think I'd only drag my husband along if I were really, really mad at him and wanted to inflict intense pain. Yep, it's that bad when I hit the stores! Your windows look happy and I love the texture you pulled into the room.
Hi Sarah S! Your email is set to private in your profile, so I couldn't email you back! 🙂 My coffee table plant is a Pothos Ivy, and super easy to grow! Here's a post of all the different houseplants we have: http://hisugarplum.blogspot.com/2012/05/plants-planters.html
Hope it helps!
I have major tree envy – can't find one here to save my life!!!! Mentioned you in my post yesterday – humor that only you and I would laugh at. 😉
They look f**king fantastic, Cassie! ; ) I love the look of matchstick and bamboo shades. For the past two years they've been on our to do list for the kitchen and our bedroom. Maybe March will finally be the month we check them off! lol Your whole family room is soo homey and inviting. I love it! =)
~ Catie
I love the organic look of these! We opted to do bamboo shades (from Lowes too!) instead of blinds in our family room and kitchen. Love them more and more every day! Ours actually have a netting behind them that helps with the privacy.
We have those in our bedroom! And yes, also quickly discovered that we better have another shade underneath or our neighbors would be seeing a little too much of us! haha. We just put cheesy roller shades behind ours. I love the addition of them in your room!
We have matchstick blinds all throughout our house! Love the look and of course, the price. These look perfect here! Just the right amount of texture!! 🙂
I drop F-bombs like I have Tourette's. My time's running out though b/c Quinn is starting to repeat what we say. F*ck!!!!
LOOOVE the matchstick blinds, perfect touch of texture & color! And tell Phoebe she's looking hawt!
They totally warm and finish the room. Lovely!
They look so good Cassie! It does tie the two rooms together! 🙂
We have twin FLFs, I named mine FiFi (get it?) and she sits in the same location at the end of our sectional! I'm planning matchsticks for the family room, too ~ yours look fabulous!!
I am totally going to have to clean up my mouth before we have kids. But I'll wait 'til the last minute before I do anything about it!
Those blinds are perfect! Love the color and texture for the space!
Looks much much better Cassie! love it!
omg i love the look ….. placing the blinds higher looks great! where are you finding your amazing fiddle fig trees????
Love the impact the change made! The whole room is such a brilliant and happy space! So many great patterns and colors and style!
Hope you enjoyed your adult time… now I am craving mexican food…
xo!
Jen
They really make such a difference! Love that they bring the tone of the table and the baskets up high. Pretty, pretty!
Makes a huge difference! LOVE YOUR Fig Tree!!!
Love Phoebe the Fig, love the addition of the matchsticks. And love cussing when my 16-year-old son isn't in the room. I admitted to him about a year ago that we cuss when he's not in our presence. He's a big rule-follower (as am I, usually) and gets annoyed with how much his friends cuss. But surely he does it a bit when he's not around us. Surely. I think for me, cussing allows me to let out a little of my bad-girl side, which is a very small percentage of my being, so it has to work extremely hard to get noticed. 😉
The blinds make such a huge difference!!
Quick question — tired to find out elsewhere on the blog where that great striped tray on your coffee table is from, but didn't see it. If you can let me know that would be great!
Also, since you had asked about the pink we painted in our nursery before, thought I'd let you know I posted a pic of it over the weekend. Feel free to come and see. It has turned out to be a great, very soft colour – maybe too soft if you were in a very bright room (the inside of the closet that we painted has no light!) but for what it's worth we love it!
Jenny
http://www.simcoestreet.blogspot.ca
Hi Jenny! I found that tray at a random discount store here, called Tuesday Morning. It has a mirror bottom, which is really why I bought it…I figured I'd just repaint the frame, but never did! And now I like it. 🙂 It'd be easy enough to duplicate the stripes….annoying, but easy! 🙂
xo. Cassie
Speaking of that coffee table, where did you get it! I love it!
Hi Anna — that table is one of those pieces we've had for so long, it's hard to remember buying it! But I believe we found it at the Pottery Barn Outlet. Craigslist usually has several that look similar.
Hope this helps!
xo. C
Speaking of that coffee table, where did you get it? I love it!