A long and rambly post

The land I live on was subdivided in 1963 so the house must have been built in 63 or 64, one of 10 in the cul-de-sac, all basic weatherboard cottages.

We bought the place in 1997, still with it's original decor: discoloured wall papers, mustard carpet, pink & blue bathroom......

I almost immediately pulled down some of the curtains and venetians to let some light in, intending to replace them at the soonest opportunity. Money was tight so it couldn't be done right away and by the time it was financially possible I had figured out that I would face a torrent of abuse every time a tradesman entered the property. And so, no curtains. Husband left eventually but then there was a question of how long will we stay here and is it worth spending on and so forth.

Anyways, I mentioned last year that I was trying to make things nicer, who knows what the future holds but we deserve not to live in a run down 60s relic.

There was a large quantity of plainish grey Ikea curtains advertised on marketplace, never used, half the retail price and I realised that as marketplace is awash with curtains I could probably force the price a lot lower. It took a couple of weeks of bargaining but I got them to the price I wanted and bought them.

I know nothing about curtains, or specifically, about the hardware and installation so I did a bit of googling and didnt figure out much  but went ahead and bought tracks and hooks.

Next, the curtains all have to be taken up, which is technically easy but it's a blockout fabric the pins don't go through (i now have a pincushion full of bent pins) and it's super hot to work so I've been picking away, little by little.

I haven't been happy with the results, they didn't hang well and I blamed the stiff fabric but you know, the outlay has been made and so I determined to stick with the project and just appreciate that it was an improvement on bent and broken venetians or faded old stop-gap alternatives.

I had completed all the smaller windows and this week I have un-picked side hems and joined curtains to cover the large front window, working in the early mornings to avoid the heat. I left the largest to last because I knew I would learn through the process and that way the largest expanse of curtain would be the one I tackled when I'd hopefully made all the mistakes. As a strategy, it worked well.

A few days ago my girls figured out that I had bought the wrong hooks (even though I'd tried a few different ones) and they also figured out how to make the existing, wrong hooks function better. They have made some not quite right curtains look acceptable.

There was a heat wave coming and I wanted to get all the windows covered so we have done that and just in time and it seems to make a difference.

Most need work done, some haven't been taken up yet, some need the hooks fixing, some are roughly hung by a minimum of hooks; the work continues but I'm starting to see that I might even like them when they are done! 

Not quite right and needs to be bigger.

Better

A young colleague of mine refuse to rent a place with a bathroom like this!

Getting rid of the tree, an historic moment!