fat, broke, and toothless… but the curtains are fabulous

Nesting… it’s no joke.

As of today I am 39 weeks pregnant. Seven days until baby boy is due to make his grand appearance. It goes without saying that I’ve been vacuuming daily, keeping the sink empty at all times, and wandering around the house aimlessly, Swiffer duster in hand, ready to attack any and all dust particles that dare to cross my path. Yesterday, however, I took it one step further.

I’ve had major beef with the curtain industry for years. I think curtains are a huge racket and have been Pinterest-ing my little butt off, trying to come up with cost-effective curtain hacks whenever I can.

When it comes down to it, curtains are simply rectangles of fabric – nothing more, nothing less. Sometimes they have fancy details like grommets but most of the time they don’t. So why do curtain panels cost so damn much?

Venture into your average Bed, Bath, & Beyond and you’re likely to find a wealth of options when it comes to curtains. But if you’re looking for floor to ceiling panels, you can expect to pay around $40 – per panel! And that’s an average. I’ve seen panels for upwards of $80 each. And no, they’re not woven with gold thread and mermaid hair. I just don’t get it.

Even Target – dear, beloved Target – has very few options under $20/panel. The $14.99 options are really chintzy and ugly. So yeah. I’ve been on this curtain mission, because unfortunately, in my absolutely-illogical-39 weeks pregnant-and-nesting-frenzy, I decided I needed to replace all the curtains in my home. Immediately.

Since Molly and baby boy are sharing a room, I already knew I’d need to replace those curtains since they are pink and lacy. But back when I was slightly more sane a few weeks ago, I figured I had some time, because it’s not like he’s going to get home from the hospital and turn up his little newborn nose at pink lace. We still haven’t even set up the crib, for heaven’s sake. The actual room share is still months away. Still, I had been halfheartedly looking for new curtain options because like I said, I refuse to be made a fool of by the big, bad, curtain industry. So every time I shopped I checked clearance racks and my personal favorite curtain hack treasure trove – shower curtains.

Yes, seriously, shower curtains! Those pink lace curtains I hung up for Molly weren’t actually curtains… they were shower curtains purchased from BBB after an exhaustive search. At $30/each they were still more than I wanted to spend, but yes I did justify splurging just a little at the time. And since they are so wide, I only needed two rather than four.

To hang shower curtains as window curtains, you’ll just need a few packs of cafe clips (found anywhere they sell curtains). They come in packs of 7, which is slightly annoying because I feel like four on each side could work well but three on one side and four on the other just doesn’t cut it. For two windows, I ended up using 3 packs (21 total clips, five per window with one extra), and it turned out just how I wanted.

Hunting the aisles of Target on Thursday afternoon I found them – two green shower curtains, on clearance for $7.48 each. All I did was cut them in half and voila – four curtain panels for $3.74 each. You just can’t beat that! I actually spent more on the cafe clips to hang them than I did on the curtains themselves.

I love the shower curtain trick because they usually have awesome patterns, and like I said, they are very wide and one curtain will easily transform into two panels. If you want to get fancy, you can go to a craft store and purchase iron-on hem tape to hide the cut edge, OR, if you’re in a rush like I was, you can just tuck the cut edge behind and vow to do a proper hemming later. Whatevs.

Here’s how they turned out:

Next up… master bedroom. We had green curtains which I decided just didn’t match the gray walls. I actually found *real* and affordable curtains at Christmas Tree Shops months ago and just hadn’t gotten around to hanging them yet. So these curtains were essentially “free” (the same way anything you buy and put away and find again later is free). Christmas Tree Shops is hit or miss… they always have good prices, but the quality is not always great. All of the sheers you see in the photos are from there – $6.99 each. Yes, great. The gray panels I used in the bedroom were $7.99 each and very nice and heavy, light blocking even. Upon closer inspection of the packaging I realized why… they were originally $40/panel at Kohls, so apparently CTS must have bought them to resell. Score!

I will admit that these were the easiest to hang and the ones that look the best because they didn’t need to be altered or anything. But finding deals is basically a full-time job, and I just ain’t got time for that.

Bedroom:

One more room to reinvent… the living room. The curtains I had hanging there were raw silk Pottery Barn panels that I’m sure cost someone, somewhere a fortune and that I found at a gigantic flea market a few years ago. When I bought them, we had a tan couch. Now our couches are green and our curtains are a slightly different shade of green and HOW CAN I BE EXPECTED TO LIVE IN THAT KIND OF WORLD WITH A BABY COMING?! (Nesting. Nesting is a real, bizarre thing).

Ok, so here I improvised and I’m not sure I’m in love with the results, but it is better than the green clashing situation I had going prior. I bought a tablecloth from Target over the summer and absolutely love the pattern, but it was way too big for our table and it was annoying that the sides basically dragged on the floor. I put it away with the intention of one day maybe turning it into curtains because, as I said, anytime I have large yardage of any kind of fabric that’s where my mind goes. I pulled my little trick of cutting it in half and hanging the two panels with cafe hooks, but the problem with the tablecloth is that it’s not as wide as the shower curtains, so the panels are a little flimsy (especially for such a large window). Oh, well. Again, I only spent $14.99 on one tablecloth, and since I bought it over the summer, this living room curtain makeover was “free.” (minus the growing cost of cafe clips).

Here it is:

The kitchen curtains got to stay. The dining room curtains also got to stay simply because the dining room is impassable these days and is basically being used as a storage area (unassembled crib included). The bathroom has NO CURTAINS, which yes, causes me daily grief. But you’d be surprised how much energy it took to change just the three rooms I’ve mentioned. I had PTO to use, which is why I had off yesterday, and of course made a giant list of things to do and accomplished fewer than half of them. “Get down on hands and knees and scrub kitchen floor” along with “repaint all the trim” got bumped. Possibly to January.

What else? This is super gross/embarrassing, but hey, I’ll share anyway. Wednesday afternoon I was sitting there at work, minding my own business and snacking on a Starburst (as one does) when all of the sudden I heard a CRACK! and out popped my tooth. My tooth!

Ok, so it was a crown but still… EW! I genuinely had no idea what to do in that moment. I quickly went outside and called my dentist who agreed to take a look that afternoon to see if he could save it. But here’s the messed up part – I went there, broken crown cradled in a napkin, and he strode into the room and declared it couldn’t be fixed even before looking in my mouth or taking an x-ray. It’s like, wtf buddy, why did you get my hopes up and make me rush over if you knew it couldn’t be repaired from the get-go?

He recommended me to an oral surgeon who was kind enough to see me the next day (Thursday). I had already planned on embarking on ‘mission: new curtains’ since I had scheduled a half day at work, but instead chose to go for the consult to see if Mr. Oral Surgeon could do the extraction/repair/new implant before baby boy made his debut. Coordinating that kind of thing with a newborn and a toddler just sounded less than appealing, you know? So instead of going shopping after work like I wanted, I hightailed it over to the surgeon and was once again disappointed. All I did was sit my ass in the chair and he came in all, “Well, we would like to wait to do the extraction until after you give birth because then we can use stronger drugs.” Ok, so… what the hell?? Again, he knew I was 9 months pregnant when I scheduled the consult, so if he was just going to tell me I had to wait, why make me come in for the appointment? I mean, obviously the answer is $$$$. Clearly he doesn’t realize/care that I’d rather be spending my hard-earned cash on new curtains than on pointless dentist visits.

So here I sit… fat, broke, and toothless. I mean, basically. It’s the molar all the way in the back, so it’s not like anyone can see it. I was also informed that implants are upwards of $5,000, so I’ll have to figure out if that’s worth it after all. Probably not.

Adult problems are fun, aren’t they?

Now it’s Saturday and I don’t have much on the agenda besides cleaning (more) and awaiting the arrival of this child. I got checked on Friday and I’m still 1cm dilated, 50% effaced. Thursday night I was having horrific contractions that I was convinced were the real deal, but then of course they weren’t.

Maybe I’ll make it to the 24th? One can only hope… I do need that money. I have new curtains and new teeth to buy.

Here’s Molly, getting in some practice: