Tie it all together

Window treatments are currently the bane of my existence. I have 9 windows and 4 doors in my house that all need a window treatment of some sort, and I am totally stuck as to what to do with my doors. I want some sort of window covering or shade that looks pretty, but is also functional. I need to be able to close it so I can have my privacy when necessary, but I want to be able to easily open it to look outside! I have these awful transparent curtain-things on the door windows now, but they came with the house so they are dingy and torn up. They need to go, along with the roller shades that I also inherited when I signed the papers and got the keys. I just really have NO CLUE what goes on a window for a door!

One room was fairly easy. The office has a door I have no intention of ever using, since it goes out to the same porch the dining room door goes to. So I put the same curtains over it that are on the window in the office, so it looks like 2 windows instead of a window and a door. Plus, my neighbor can look directly into the office, so I'm glad to have them covered up.

The living room. This door completely shows any visitors to the front porch why this house is considered a shotgun- you can see straight through the office and dining room and into the kitchen. Yikes. I'm not a fan of the entire neighborhood being able to see inside my house, so I currently have it covered up with one of my extra curtains from my apartment that didn't get used in the house. Doesn't look nice, since the curtain is black and the living room is a sage green. Oops. The curtains in that room are IKEA Merete curtains in a brownish/olive green color. Not exactly an easy color to match... but I am pretty certain I can't put the same curtains on the door either!

The dining room has these pretty grey Woolrich curtains from Target that I think are perfect. However, they don't make a valance or anything else in the same fabric... and that means I'd have to match it as well, or find something coordinating.

The kitchen is a little bit easier, cause it's got red curtains. Of course, they are discontinued curtains from Linens-n-Things that I bought before the store closed. This room also has a door, and while privacy isn't as big of an issue, I would rather not have to look outside in the dark and not really be able to see out while everybody else can see in!

I've been having trouble deciding if I need curtains for these windows, or shades, or blinds. I have no idea. I've looked it up online, and there are no examples of doors with windows with any type of window treatment except those ugly panel curtains that wouldn't work anyway!

When I looked at Making It Lovely's blog, I noticed her Window Treatments section. I saw these beautiful tie up shades she made herself and fell in love. Of course, then I got busy and kind of forgot about them, until this weekend when I found another example of some awesome tie up shades.



So when I went poking around the internet, I found a couple of cute shades that are similar to what I think I'd like. Of course, they aren't long enough, so I'd probably have to make my own!




Wonder if I could convince my mother to make me some? I found her a great tutorial online that she could use! :-) I totally don't sew. I wish I did.

However, for the rest of the windows? While I have curtains, I need blinds of some sort. Unfortunately, 4 windows are 84" long so finding ready made blinds for any type of decent price is absolutely unheard of. :-( I guess I'll have to come up with some cute creative idea for those as well... Any ideas you have will definitely be considered!