My curtain challenge.

Curtains for my living room (or is it a family room?) have been a huge challenge for me.  I don't really have a specific color scheme nailed down which is certainly part of the problem.  I've also been searching for an area rug that I like, but haven't found one.  Yes, I know I'm probably doing everything in the wrong order, but that's just how I seem to do things sometimes.

So my family room is huge -- it runs the whole side of my house and has 4 very tall windows.  Therefore buying curtains you don't like (or do like!) is not cheap.  Sadly I don't have the Nester's knack for tasteful mistreatment of windows, but I greatly admire it.  And honestly, I would still have the similar challenge of finding that much fabric to even attempt her lessons on mistreatment.

To date, I have tried 3 different curtains.  First, a very vivid red duck cloth type from JC Penny.  I chose it because my husband really wants to have color in the room.  We differ on what that might mean, but we both agreed that the red was too much for the room.  Next we tried a neutral/beige, stripped curtain, again from JC Penny.  I made the mistake of not noticing the width was larger so the curtain looked ridiculous as there was too much fabric -- though the color wasn't bad.  Then I admit I gave up and decided to put up some very cheap curtains from Target for my third try.  Who knew that the rod pockets wouldn't be large enough?!  Groan.

The holidays then arrived and I abandoned all efforts to put up curtains.  Bleah.

After Christmas, JC Penny had another sale to lure me back in again.  My husband and I liked the style of the first curtains we tried, but not the color so I went back and stared at the color selection for a while.  I finally settled on a toffee color and nervously awaited for them to be ordered in.

Results?  I am pleasantly pleased with them!

And now I am off to find an area rug that will work in the room.  It has to allow for red, green, and toffee.  It should also allow light yellow and blue to be in the room.  What do you think?  I'm nuts, right?  Hah!!  But what's life without a little challenge?

Seriously, if you have any tips or suggestions, I'll take them.  I will also amend this post with a few pictures of the room when I get them taken.