Mad Men and New Curtains

Here at Casa de Misty we are pretty much redecorating everything ready for the new arrival.  We've finally bitten the bullet and had new carpets after seven years of living here and everything was pretty shabby.  There is still LOTS to be done, but last night I had an evening to myself, so thought I'd spend some time on one of my favourite things - CURTAINS!  The Mr was out, the cats were behaving (ish) and I had everything I needed to make someything fancy for the living room.  I am aware that my ideal Saturday evening being spent in the house by myself making new curtains probably should be quite embarrassing.  But nevermind.

Now, we decorated the living about 3 years ago (i think!) but I made ridiculous choices - matt mossy green.  Which was very innappropriate considering we have a woodburner and our front door is straight onto a street meaning it was filthy in the space of about a week.  So I wanted something cleanable, fresh and bright, but still cosy.  Ooooh and cheap!  So I took inspiration from my favourite programme, and my favourite set within it, Pete and Trudy'd New York appartment in Mad Men:

Pete and Trudy's super stylish New York Apartment

The white walls, the warm orange fits perfectly with my furniture and costings - white paint is the cheapest you can buy! Also, having a degree in Fine Art, I am predisposed to loving the minimalism of a white wall, then ruining it by adding lots of stuff!  Now don't get me wrong, the one thing I still loved about my living room pre-decor change was the curtains - made from re-pieceing an original 1960s bed valance back together, on the day I met Jarvis Cocker, they hold good memories, however everything needed to be refreshed.  But rest assured, I'll be saving these bad boys:

Old curtains made from Original 1960s vintage bed valance, Betty Francis (nee Draper) in bed on the TV.

I already had the fabric, bought a good couple of years ago from ikea, again because it reminded me of the Mad Men opening credits:

Mad Men Opening Credits

Ikea fabric designed by Lotta Kuhlhorn in 2008, Misty helping with the pattern matching.

Seen as this was all Mad Men inspired, I spent the evening measuring, matching, ironing and stitiching to two episodes of the newest series of Mad Men (which is AMAZING!!!!!).  I realised I didn't have enough lining fabric so decided to carry on unlined (usually a big no no for me but I was too excited about making them there and then).  And so, here are the finished articles!

Mad Men inspired Ikea fabric curtains, drawn.  Joan and her rubbish husband on the TV.

Open Curtains this morning, Joan and Lane on the TV, Harry and Misty getting annoyed because I'm interrupting them watching Mad Men.

 I then realised I had no photos with the orange walls!  So here they are, I can only photograph this area of the room, as to the right and behond me is a big pile of stuff including the iron, washing on the radiator and furniture for the babies bedroom we collected from my brothers yesterday(just visible!)  So strictly to maintain the illusion that I live in a tidy house, you can only see it from this angle!

Mad Men curtains with Pete and Trudy inspired orange wall

There was a small amount of fabric left so I made 2 round cushions for the sofa while I had the sewing machine out.  I tried to get a really nice photo of Misty curled up on it to finish the blog off, however, she wasn't interested, so had to make do with her doing a forced pose, then just playing with a ball instead!