Thursday, July 03, 2008

Project of the day




I feel crummy, and unmotivated, and slow. But I still accomplished something out of the ordinary - I put up curtains in our bedroom.


Why? Because streetlight light and early-morning light is waking us up and interfering with our sleep; because it's a very energy efficient thing to do and should keep our room cooler or hotter depending on the season and lower our energy bills; and finally because there are some provocative studies about women who have light exposure at night being more prone to breast cancer and I have been saying for three years that for that reason alone I was going to do this. The "it looks cool" factor is in there somewhere too, but the other reasons are the real reason I went ahead with this project.


The curtains I chose at Bed Bath & Beyond (after a lot of searching at multiple stores) were labeled "green earth" or something like that, indicating how they were made and that they were an energy efficient variety; they are supposed to cut heating/cooling costs significantly. We will find otu if it's true. I got a double rod and hung white cotton sheers (my favorite were actually, surprisingly, from Target) because then during the day I can let light in but people coming up our front steps will no longer have a direct view into our bedroom.

I actually didn't remove the ugly mini-blinds that are mounted inside the window frames yet. They do deflect some light/keep some heat in, so on the hottest/coldest days I might put them down as well, but since they're so ugly I am glad to have them hidden from sight.
I'm going for a beachy-feel in our room. A year or two ago (I don't remember now...before one of my surgeries...hmmm....) I painted our room a calm, peaceful blue (it's called "Titanic" which is about the worst color name in history, so I renamed it "calm ocean blue" and I'm sticking with it); we have white woodwork throughout the house; our furniture is dark oak (mission style to go with the house's 1920s feel); our bedding is blue and white. Pics show all!
So we have ocean walls, sky bedding, driftwood furniture (okay that's a stretch....wood, anyway) and sand curtains. It's not a theme room, but beach inspired. I have a couple of seashells on my dresser, but mostly it's just a color scheme.

And I like it!
PS The reason the window behind our bed only has the sheer white cotton curtain is that I thought I could get away with only one sand colored blackout curtain on each window. Putting it up showed me my error - it looked sad and wimpy with just one. Two is much better, but now I have to buy two more for the other window.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Kristina,

To eliminate all the light from the street lights at night and the morning sun, check out http://blackoutEZ.com. They make a window cover for people who work nights and sleep during the day that completely darkens the room. They work great and are easy to use!

Anonymous said...

Hi Kristina, like the pics...my bedroom is almost the same color, just a little lighter!

Hope you're doing well...just been thinking about you!

April