Country Curtains

Our bay-window (the Christmas-candles are still up). (Photo by BobbaLew.)

Last Sunday (January 22, 2012) we went to our local Country Curtains outlet to try to engineer something for our bay-window pictured above.
Country Curtains is not Mighty Lowes or Wal*Mart. We had been to Lowes but our window is a challenge.
As you can see, our bay-window is entirely framed with wood, with wood molding. But the window-unit itself is vinyl, which means curtain mounting hardware can’t be screwed into the vinyl.
It has to be screwed into the wood framing or molding.
Other givens were at play, namely -a) whatever was installed allow light, or filtered light, into the room, and -b) whatever was installed would insulate, since the window is a very large hole in the wall.
A guy came out from Lowes to measure each window-pane for blinds mounted to the top-surround.
We thought about that, and decided against blinds.
Five individual top-casings, at the angle of each window-pane, would be partially obscuring the top of each window, in the top window-casing.
And blinds wouldn’t be insulating.
Individual insulating shades had the same problem, and would partially obscure with a stack when retracted.
The fact it’s a bay-window makes a single insulating curtain difficult.
A bay-window is not straight, so a rod for a close curtain has to be curved.
There are curved rods designed for bay-windows (we saw one at Lowes), but not the shape or length we have, even with adjustment.
Most rods are shorter, and don’t match our window.
So finally we decided on a single straight rod for an insulating curtain covering the window-opening.
Such a curtain would cover the window-hole, but could be pulled open (back).
The curtain would be hung on a traverse rod with pull-back strings.
Pulled open, the curtain would leave a stack, perhaps a single window-pane each side.
So off to Country Curtains to -a) purchase an insulating curtain, and -b) purchase hardware and a traverse rod.
We took along a Country-Curtains catalog, which my wife gets in the mail.
Country-Curtains is nationwide, but this was a local store.
The store was awash in faux-window curtain displays, pretty curtains everywhere amidst beautiful antique furniture also for sale. Very crowded and florid.
But then we detailed our requirements, particularly an insulated curtain.
Hemming and hawing.
Our window-opening isn’t a standard width. A standard curtain would be too small or much too big.
Except for one curtain, about the right width, but it would need to be shortened.
Everyone stared at me, my wife and the sales-clerk.
“Yer lookin’ at me? I’m supposed to pass judgment on this?
Well, I guess it looks okay, except it reminds me of a mattress-cover.
But it’s the only one that comes close to fitting.
I guess it’ll do.”
“Which color?” Blue or black or cranberry?
“Black looks gray,” I said. “And no cranberry” (a mattress-cover).
“I guess blue will look okay on yellow walls.”
It still looks like a mattress-cover, but it’s the only one that fits.
Next was hardware; the traverse-rod.
We bought a decorative traverse-rod, as opposed to an el-cheapo rod that looked like junk.
“Which end-insert do you want, our birdcage, our” (whatever) “or the fleur-de-lis?”
“The dagger,” I said; the fleur-de-lis.
Men, they just don’t understand.
I’m sorry, but if a Japanese maven fails in business, he falls on that traverse rod.
The sales-associate had the traverse-rod and various brackets in stock.
But the curtains and daggers have to be ordered.
Now, can I escape the store without forking over $500?
$408.78.
I noticed a small sign on the counter: a “certified clutter-coach” was going to give a presentation.
“Certified by who?” I asked.
“Marcy, it’s everywhere,” I said under my breath, chuckling.
The bracketry is so involved we probably will farm out installation.
I don’t have hours to figure it all out.
I’m not Einstein.

• RE: “Marcy, it’s everywhere!” —“Marcy” is my number-one Ne’er-do-Well — she was the first I was e-mailing stuff to. Marcy and I worked in adjacent cubicles at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired. A picture of her is in this blog at Conclave of Ne’er-do-Wells. At one time she asked how I managed to dredge up so much insane material to write up, and I responded “Marcy, it’s everywhere!”