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| Young Woman Relaxing, 1894. Francesc Masriera |
See the curtains hangin' in the window
In the evening on a Friday night
A little light a-shinin' through the window
Lets me know everything's all right
Summer breeze makes me feel fine
Blowin' through the jasmine in my mind
- SEALS AND CROFTS
There is a heatwave coming this week to South Carolina. The forecast is for highs in the 100s! This scares me mostly because of our electric bill. Our summer electric bills are already the highest bills of the year, and we already keep our thermostat at 78 degrees. I haven't been able to thrift any black out curtains. I've made do with curtains I could find cheaply and using cardboard boxes in my windows to block out more light. For all my beautiful home friends, you may want to look away. I am not going to win any awards for my interior design. What is more important is covering my windows with something to cool the house down and save money. We will not let money or the perfect be the enemy of a temporary better. Perhaps with the money we save over the summer, we can buy some nice blackout curtains.
You will need the following:
Any paper products you have laying around. Paper grocery bags, newspapers, card stock. Tin foil or light pieces of fabric would work great too. I am using the light weight brown paper strips they use to pack Amazon packages.
Broken down cardboard boxes.
A roll of brown craft paper or old wrapping paper.
Clear tape.
Clothes Pins.
The goal is to cover our windows with stuff we have laying around. Use whatever you have. We always save boxes and papers for gardening projects. I sandwiched cardboard boxes in-between the glass pane and my curtains. The cardboard sits on the window ledges. Sometimes, you can stuff the cardboard in the windowsill snugly. Other times, the cardboard is a little wobbly, but the cardboard stays up good enough leaning in. Even if you can only do a couple windows, DO IT. Even if you don't have enough materials to cover your entire window, just cover as much as you can. Anything you cover will block the light and will help.
In the living room windows, I have cardboard boxes balancing on the bottom window ledges and held up by the curtains. I added layers of Amazon packing paper to cover more of the windows. I attached the paper with clothes pins to the existing curtains. I also placed a long piece from a brown craft paper roll on two windows in the dining room. I secured the craft paper to the top of the curtains with two clothes pins. I also used two clothes pins at bottom corners of the paper to weigh the paper down. It ends up being a paper roller shade. The roll fit perfectly width wise and I just cut to fit the length.
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| Dining room before with just cardboard boxes in the windowsills. |
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| After, craft paper roll "shades" to sides and extra paper top middle window |
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| Brown craft paper roll "shade", used on left and right side windows. |
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| Before, with only cardboard in the windowsill. |
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| After adding Amazon packing paper, two sheets to the top. |
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| The packing paper wasn't always perfect. I just taped together a big piece. |
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| Put packing paper in the side of the door window. I just taped it in poorly. |
This has helped tremendously. I have upped our thermostat to 79 degrees from 78. Even with the increase, it feels so much cooler in the house. I had a long list of reasons why I couldn't do the project. I didn't have the right black out curtains, I couldn't afford the correct and lovely ones. We have 14 large windows and they want 30 dollars a set on Amazon. Maybe I could DIY the curtains one day? I didn't have the blackout fabric figured out yet and I wasn't going to figure out the perfect solution by Monday. My mind went round and round over this. Finally, I thought, what if I just used what I had at home for free and it wasn't lovely? What if it was more important to cool the house and help our a/c unit not work itself to death? What if saving our money from going down the drain is just as lovely?
Is there a project that you've been putting off because you can't do it aesthetically pleasing or just right? Maybe there is a creative way you can move forward on it imperfectly and with things you already have. I hope this helps change your mindset. A practical solution today beats a perfect solution tomorrow. Being industrious is better than being pretty. I am so glad I didn't wait to black out the windows until I could find the right curtains. Ladies, throw some trash up in your windows and stay cool and save three hundred dollars this summer. Thank you so much for stopping by and God bless you.
Better is the poor man that provideth for himself,
than he that is glorious and wanteth bread.
PROVERBS 12:11 DOUAY-RHEIMS
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| Interior with a woman at the window. 1880. Christian Clausen |
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