The weather has cooled to the point that The Squire and I were able to remove the air conditioning unit from the living room window. One thing led to another – as it generally does! – and we ended up removing all of the drapes and sheers to be washed and then doing the windows. All five of them. Fortunately, those are new windows and fold inside for washing. Whoever invented those is on the short list for canonization, believe me!
I’m taking care of her dog for Mrs. Mac this week, and she told me to bring over my laundry if I wished, so that solved one problem. She has a gargantuan washing machine, and all ten panels didn’t even fill the tub. When I got home, The Squire helped me get them on the clothes line.
The drapes are old enough to vote! I left the Evil Insurance Company in 1983, and The Squire’s elder nephew either was living with us then, or came up the following summer. At any rate, he got a job at Sears and bought the curtains for us with his employee discount. With five windows in the living room and a five-foot bow window in the dining room, every little bit helps. They are lined with a thin foam insulation, which sticks together every time we wash them. We had a dickens of a time smoothing them out when we hung them on the line. They are wrinkled, but can’t be ironed. Maybe they will look better when they dry. They really need to be replaced. Desperately.
However.
We can’t find replacements that we like. They are white, pinch-pleated, and floor length. I know they will cost the earth, but apparently I’m asking the impossible. They are nowhere to be found. Every color in the rainbow, but not white. I don’t like the grommets; this is not a warehouse, thank you very much. I suppose I could survive with the kind you gather into the rod, but if I’m going to spend close to five hundred bucks between the living room and the dining room, I want to get something I like.
In April of 2018 I read an article about things that make your house look dated – brass chandeliers, tie-back curtains, dust ruffles, wall paper – I have them all! Recently, I read that some of those things are smart again. If I wait another year or so, maybe the curtains will come back into fashion.
thisendoftheswamp 