the most gorgeous fabric ever

I'm so excited. The major element in our TV room update - the roman blinds - arrived yesterday. Yay! We haven't hung them yet as it will be quite the task making sure they are all placed properly, so for now they sit on our dining room table and I pet them as I walk by. I love, love linen.

I think I'm in a minority - Most people pick bold colourful prints but I'm most comfortable with a linen. (Another example of my love of this kind of fabric is my living room drapes). I want everything in linen.  Which isn't awesome with a kid but for drapery I can get away with it. Side note - You can find linen look alikes that are more durable, like we did for our dining room chairs, and, our kitchen bench. Both give me the look of linen but with water resistance which is perfect for cleaning up little fingerprints/spills.  But back to the romans. The fabric we went with was the Tuscany Linen, Oatmeal Slub. It's unfortunate that the fabric has "Oatmeal Slub" as a part of it, it makes it sound rather bland. But there is nothing bland about it, it's so, so gorgeous.


Going back a few steps.... after I last posted, Aubrey and I measured, and re-measured the windows to make sure that we were ordering the right size for each window. The room is weird, each window a different width and we wanted to make sure that the spacing between the windows was even.

Once we had measurements I e-mailed them to Tonic Living for our final quote. Even after we got the first quote, we double checked measurements again and revised it. When dealing with this many windows, and the amount of fabric needed, I didn't want any mistakes. We were able to get a discount on the order based on the fact that we had ordered Oscar's drapes from them which was nice. Even still it was still a relatively expensive investment as there are 5 windows plus the glass door. You have to factor in labour for each window + the fabric. The linen wasn't inexpensive at $17 a yard, but it wasn't ridiculous compared to what you could have picked.

I guess what I'm getting at is that this wasn't a fly by night decision. We had to really weigh if investing in these were worthwhile, considering we have a washroom reno and potentially some landscaping this Summer. But the privacy was worth it, so we bit the bullet.

The process to make them too about 4 weeks and below are some details that make me love Tonic...

It was great as I noticed each package was labeled as shown above - because each of our windows is randomly a different size, Tonic had made sure to note on each package which window was which - not only by the Window # (based on the quote for referral I think) but also with the measurements so we could be 100% sure we were putting the romans in the right spot.

Also, we got instructions on how to install. This is for Aubrey. My part is done. :)

I cannot wait to have them hung! Now I'm on the hunt for an ottoman for the room. Which is tricky as it's a small room and we have a small budget. Fingers crossed.