Buh-Bye Drabby Drapes!

Its taken almost a year of searching for the perfect drapes for my basement slider, but I finally found the solution this past weekend.  I’ve ransacked Homegoods, Marshalls, and T.J. Maxx for the past year trying to find the perfect set of drapery panels for the basement.  Because I’m thrifty and I know that these stores once had what I was looking for (at the price I wanted)  I was very stubborn looking looking elsewhere.  What I want: cream color, grommet, lined, 95″ panels.  95″ is actually too long, but 84′” is too short so I decided that I would just go with 95″ and give them a hem with the handy-dandy sewing machine.  For the past 5 years Kentucky blue-ish tab-top panels have hung in the basement.  I acquired these in college and they “worked” for the time being…

My mom suggested that I check  JC Penny’s.  To my surprise they actually have an awesome selection of window treatments.  I found several panels I liked, but of course none of them were in stock.  I am the “I want it now!” kind of girl and was unwilling to wait for shipping.  After doing some math, and using a coupon, I settled on a really cool cream set with a herringbone pattern that had to be ordered.  I bought them at the store on Sunday and Wednesday night they were on my doorstep…not to shabby JC Penny, I must say.

The panels are priced at $60 per panel, but because I’m so thrifty I got them on sale for $29.99 each.  And you guessed it, I had a coupon for $10 off a $25 purchase.  I asked the clerk if she could ring them up separately so I could use the coupon 4 times, but she totally surprised  me and just price adjusted each panel to $19.99.  Because it was all purchased together I spent enough to receive free shipping!  JC Penny just moved up several spots up on my rank!

After unpacking it all I started to carefully hang them to make sure I really liked it…don’t worry, I had several photo-texts with my mom and my friend Krista to get second opinions on this one (unlike the console table I posted about here ).

After my consults I decided they were a go.  Next on the list, breaking out the ironing board and pressing them.  What a daunting task, and of course Modern Family was pre-empted by the CMA’s last night.

Finally (about 2 hours later) they were ironed and hung…and i really like them.  you really can’t see the subtle pattern from these pictures, but they are perfect.  I almost feel like they blend in too much with the walls so I’v been contemplating painting the walls grey with the left over gallon from the console project.

I still need to hem them.  I just used some safety pins for now.  I learned a really cool trick online about how to “train” your drapes by tying them together.  I hope this works!

So what do you think, should i paint the walls grey since I already own the paint?  Our office is a light grey with cream drapes and I love it.  Do the drape panels blend into the walls too much?  Also, the because of the bad lighting (I was just so excited to get my package in the mail I couldn’t wait to take pictures in the daylight) the colors are not true to life.  But they are not that far off….let me know your thoughts.