{Family Room} Adding Matchsticks

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 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?

FAMILY ROOM TO-DO LIST

(click links to see project)

Before Shots

Cover Up the Orange!

Create a Floorplan

Place a Larger TV Over the Fireplace

Enclose the Pass-Thru & Take Out the Wet Bar

Build Distressed Shelves for TV Components

Build Desktop
Buy a Sectional

Mount TV & Hide Cords 

Paint Mantle

Find Desk Chair

Hang Art Over Sofa

Paint/Stain/Replace Sofa Legs

Re-Hang Art Over Chair

Decide Fate of Rugs

New Light Fixture

Window Coverings

Decide Fate of Matching Tables