We were hesitant to obscure our beautiful glass windows and quaint neighborhood views with bulky window treatments. Luckily, curtains aren’t like the other girls.

Fun fact: those white grid lines that you see all the time in windows are called ‘muntins.’

Another fun fact: our windows didn’t have any. The previous owner had ripped them all out and left them in a broken heap in the garage.

And if I’m being completely honest? I didn’t mind one bit. It’s not something I ever would have done intentionally, but our windows are so huge that I feel like the decision was actually genius: marking up these windows with grids would have done a disservice to the awesome view of our super-private backyard.

(You might as well call our backyard Forks, because it looks like Edward Cullen could wander out of those woods at any second!)

I love how humongous our windows feel, and I love the clean, modern feel of having plain panes of glass. Our style is basically the extremely dysfunctional marriage between classic and modern (notice I say ‘dysfunctional,’ not ‘irreconcilable’), and our windows are a great example of the motley duality we’re going for.

Our windows were also bare of any sort of window treatments. No blinds. No curtains. Not even one of those squishy holiday window decals. These suckers were totally bare, which is actually pretty remarkable for a home of this vintage (how did this house escape the 90s with nary a balloon valance?!)

We knew we had to outfit these windows with something, but I was adamant about one thing: no blinds!

I hate blinds. Gloves off: they’re basically glorified dust traps that completely obliterate your view of the outside world, while also looking stupid and basic. Not to mention they’re perpetually fucked! They get warped, bent, uneven, faded, the strings tangle… ugh they’re just a nightmare!

(Oh, you really like blinds? Well this is awkward…)

There was no way I was going to hide my gorgeous, ginormous windows behind blinds. So we compromised, and agreed on curtains.

Since we had so many windows to dress, this was a task that prioritized quantity over quality. We weren’t really in the market for the curtains of our dreams. This wasn’t the time for $300 panels or $50 finials. This was all about the fast and dirty.

One Ikea trip later…

We chose Ikea’s Lenda panels, which are an off-white cotton with tab-tops. You really can’t beat the price: a set of two panels cost us $25. The Räcka rod was $4, and the Betydlig brackets were $1.50 each, bringing the all-in cost of each window to a little over $30. Not too shabby.

Skip the pictogram instructions, here’s what you’ll need to hang Ikea curtains:

• Drywall anchor screws (two per bracket, not included!)
• Spirit level
• Various screwing, drilling, and hammering tools
• Two beers (to be consumed after installation, lest your curtains end up fucked)
• Garment steamer (optional, if you care about wrinkles)

First up, the dining room.

People talk a whole lotta smack on the internet about how you should hang your curtains. Since we had a whole lotta window and not so much wall, we couldn’t get super dramatic with our curtain rod placement. We opted for a modest distance away from our window frame.

Since we had two windows close together, my initial instinct was to place one panel on opposing sides of each window.

That looked dumb. (Whenever R catches me trying to do something cheap, he’ll shoot me this disgusted look and ask, “is there a war on?!”)

Giving each window their own set looked a lot better:

Onto the loft upstairs…

The upstairs ceilings are a bit lower than the downstairs ceilings. Rather than raise our curtains even higher above the window, we decided to embrace the puddle effect.

Not sure if we’ll keep the puddle look, or hem the bottoms…