Sometimes the sun is just too bright. Especially when Hudson's bedtime is 7:15pm and the sun doesn't set till almost 9 (It's been hard to read The Going to Bed Book - "The sun has set not long ago" when your apartment looks like it is 3pm with the shades down!). We've been hearing him toss and turn and whine till almost 8:30 some nights because it's too bright to go to sleep.
We've recently made some updates that has been a huge help (Hudson sleeps longer which is *always* a good thing). We went to Ikea a couple weekends ago with our friends M+B and picked up some black out shades.
I proceeded to chop up a shade to line our existing roman shades (we couldn't mount long panels because there is a radiator cover in the way and short drapes look silly). I used 'stitch witchery' to seam the edges and cut unfinished buttonholes in the back to accommodate the exiitng hardware and sewed the liner to the bamboo shade.
That's Dave re-hanging the shade. I'm sure my mother is asking why, why didn't I use the sewing machine? Truth is that is long gone (a CL sell a year ago) to make room for baby. Sometimes you gotta make do with what you've got and I have an iron board and mad ironing skillz ;). You may be wondering why is it night outside? Well, Saturday night is our in-house "date night" we put the baby to bed in our bedroom and take over the living dining room to ourselves - make a leisurely dinner and watch a movie. Come bedtime, we either transfer baby, or blow up the air mattress and camp out in the living room. I know - it's the small things in life.
Anywho... below is the final shot. It's hard to tell with the flash, but the liners do cut out most of the light (see the bright sun along the edges?)! We figure it will be great insulation in the winter (and our electric bill has gone down even with all the AC usage :)).
The other improvement to the living arrangements has been adding a curtain to the entrance to the living room. The sunlight from the kitchen was reflecting off the artwork in the hall and still bringing in light to Hudson's sleeping area. A sample from work and 'stitch witchery' and the iron did their magic and we had the shade installed. I got the hardware off of west elm including the drapery clips (a decorator's best friend!) in the gunmetal finish. I liked that the hardware relates the dark bookcase. Below are the open & closed photos. The drape relates to the color of the sofa (it's a light color, but doesn't blend too much with the wall) and looks good open during the day and does it's job at night! Dave installed the rod with lead anchors in our plaster walls as Hudson loves to tug on things. I wonder if he will think his name is "no touch!" soon? Ah, the joys of the active baby!
And we can't have a blog post without at least one baby photo...
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