One project that we were very eager to start is fixing up our sunroom/office/our dog Lunar’s sitting area. We were very lucky to have a ton of natural light in that space but…the blinds are horrid. And we need to update the beadboard, but that’s a later post.
We have 9 different sets of window blinds and they all have their quirks. Some only open one way, some open the others, some barely close, and the rest are just happy where they are and stay stuck. And within the first day of living here we knew we just wanted to take down the quirky wooden blinds and replace them with a dual curtain rod. The back rod will hold a nice sheer panel and the front will hold the *yet to be determined* printed curtain.
When researching what curtain rods to replace them with we VERY quickly found that they were more on the expensive side since we have about 40 feet of wall to cover and pretty hard to find with the curved corner that we needed to run a continuous panel. We landed on the kits at Ballard Designs and we love the quality and the heft of the hardware, but we were working on a budget as new homeowners. Our total for just the curtain hardware alone, not including finials, was going to run is about $800 (when there is no sale). Then K.C. introduced me to the wonders of The Ballard Designs Outlet.
There are a handful of Ballard Designs Outlets and honestly, it would be worth a long drive for the prices. Often items are 50%+ off so we highly recommend going. We essentially needed 4 hardware kits but at the outlet, they are sold in separate pieces. We would go a few Saturdays every month and sometimes they would have a few of the items that we needed and other times they would have everything that we needed but in the wrong color. We got to know the staff very well too as it took us about 8 trips to get all of the hardware that we needed. By going that route, we ended up spending about $250. WELL worth it for us since the drive to our Ballard Designs Outlet wasn’t too far out of the way! We’re just missing the finials and that’s an easy find for later once we’re ready to wrap up this project.
For now, we’re just contemplating on what curtains to hang for the front panel. Thankfully, we know how to sew! Interested in seeing a sewing post down the road? Spoiler alert-K.C. is the one with the sewing skills!
Thanks for following along!
Melanie and K.C.