November 22nd, 2019

Oooooo!  You know what this is?  New drapes.  In fact they are very specifically Light Blocking Drapes.  Or at least that is what the label says.

It 's something we've been meaning to do for a long time now.  About 3 1/2 years in fact!  About time we got 'round to it.  It seems there was always something else that was more important.  But finally, taadaa!  Here it is.  Well that's what we thought anyway.

I should back up and set the stage for this.

When we bought our adorable little cottage of a house, we knew that we had 3 bedrooms.  We choose the largest bedroom for our room.  Makes sense right?  So as we moved furniture in and set things up  somehow we ended up designating the smallest bedroom - the one with it's own itty bitty bathroom - as the guest room.  Great plan.  A lovely thing to be able to offer guests. Not only their own room, but their own attached bathroom.  Done.

Then on the complete other side of the house was the largest bedroom, a bathroom and the third bedroom.  As I said, we selected the largest bedroom as ours so  the 3rd bedroom became Tim's office.   Also done.

Tim's office got set up very quickly because he needed to get back to work.  He has so much equipment in there!   3 monitors, the computer, a laptop, routers, dockings stations, an enormous desk and chair, lots of shelving with all sorts of things on it,  a printer, a shredder, his safe, other stuff I don't even know what is and miles and miles and miles of wires.  Once that was set up, it was not likely that any of it was ever coming back down.  

So after one very long day's work, we felt accomplished and really tired.  Couldn't wait to collapse into our own bed in our new house.

It  took us actually sleeping in the bedroom that first night to learn that having a bedroom on the front of the house might not have been our best idea.    We have never had a bedroom on the front side of a house before so it just didn't dawn on us that it might possibly be an issue.

As a pertinent aside, the previous owner left, not only all of their furniture but linens, bedding, dishes, pots and pans and curtains.  We got rid of everything EXCEPT the curtains and draperies.  We just felt that the existing window treatments would do until we came to a point where we were ready to replace them all.  There were other things more important to take care of.  Like completely re-doing the kitchen.  And replacing the HVAC system. And moving the washer and dryer to the utility room.  And. And. And.  So for 3 1/2 years we have been taking care of the "ands".

Our bedroom had been given some really cheapo narrow slatted venetian blinds which remain slightly open at all times because they do not work and  serviceable, inexpensive, thin, ordinary polyester white drapes. Which means that for this entire time, 3 1/2 years, which is roughly 1,277 nights in a row,  we have had street lights, moonlight, star light and car lights coming in our window all night long. ARGH!  No wonder we don't sleep well.

They say you can get used to anything if you give it long enough.  Well apparently 3 1/2 years wasn't quite long enough because we were OVER it.  Therefore last weekend we went to the store and bought the above draperies that were clearly marked, "Light Blocking Draperies".  Good Enough.

So we came home and put them up and....well...  
The first photo is with the old window treatments, the second one is with the new ones.  Do you see any difference?  Coz we surely do not.

 I am going to go out on a limb here and say that these are not actually "Light Blocking Draperies" regardless of what the label claims.   And I would also  call it a total fail.  Dang.

So we took them back down, carefully refolded, repackaged and they will be going back to the store.  Grrrrrrr.

Meanwhile, Tim went online and tried again.  They arrived a couple of days ago in a big fat juicy box.  We were dubious, but hopeful.

Tim put one up right away.  First the side window.  This is at night as you can see.  Or actually not see.

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Oh my!  Where did the window go??  

​Then the window behind the bed was addressed the next afternoon.

I cannot even show you a photograph of how darkity dark it is in our bedroom at night now because it is SO dark it is like the deepest, most mysterious cave in there now.  Aafter the lights are turned off, our bedroom now looks like a photo of a black cat eating licorice in the dark.  It's Awesome!

It doesn't take much to please us. But apparently, Black Out draperies, that actually  block out light rank pretty high on the list.

We are going to see if this improves our sleep this weekend!

​Wishing you a great weekend and some really wonderful night's of sleep