The Curtain Mistake I Made
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Let me tell you a little story about curtains.
“Happy Fall ya’ll” from September of 2014. This photo was the only “good” photo I could find of the curtains I am referring to below. Super simple. Spoiler: I already miss them.
On Friday night, a wild Friday night I will say, I opened the back door for Alfred to go out and caught a glimpse at the back side of our curtains. They were SO DIRTY! I think most of the dirt came from Alf on the door side, but on the other panel? It was Dwayne! He touches the curtain while he eats so it was crusted with old dried food. I try to open the curtain every time he’s in his chair to avoid this, but no one is perfect.
Gross.
I don’t have a before photo but please be grateful for that.
Since Mike was at home I used his height to help me pull the curtains off and I threw them in the wash.
I should note that I’ve done this before! When we got the curtains they came very smelly, think chemical smelly. I washed them, dried them (probably on low heat), and hung them up. They were also very creased when they arrived so the washing and drying really helped get them ready for hanging.
You probably see where this is going, but after I washed them I threw them in the dryer. I started the dryer on the normal setting without thinking about how 3 years ago I dried them on low heat.
They are ruined.
The back liner melted and unfortunately melted into itself.
I remember these being more expensive than they are now and I am very sad about it. I considered ordering the exact same curtain on amazon last night but changed my mind last minute when I saw that Target had very similar ones and was having a sale on home decor (15% off with LABORDAY). I used the handy “order pickup” at check out and picked them up this afternoon. I think they came out to $11.99 per panel. They are very similar to the ruined ones and very simple.
I brought them home, hung them up, and was confused. They weren’t the same, but they were.
I did some more digging and my original ones were 52″ wide! The new ones were only 42″ wide so with them both hung up I was 20″ short on fabric. It still covered the doors but it looked flat and not full.
Bummer.
I decided to live with it.
An updated photo from 2017 with new, a little darker, more creased, and smaller curtains.
And then I changed my mind.
I found THESE 52″ wide very similar curtains, again, at Target and rashly decided to order them for pick up. They came out to almost $18 a piece so I spent $12 more for wider curtains. Worth it. I think.
Soo many face palms in this process… I had already thrown away the packaging for the old ones and remember thinking, “I should leave these out incase something isn’t right with them, but they will just be sitting on top of the trash so it should be fine.” (Insert lots of LOLs here)
Mike cleaned out the fridge and threw away leftovers after I decided to live with it.
I changed my mind and then found myself cleaning old food off cardboard with soap and water so I could repackage up the wrong curtains to take them back.
A few other hiccups happened during the return/buying new process, but 25 minutes later I was leaving Target and heading home with these new beauties.
Another updated photo from 2017 (a few hours later) of the new, very similar curtains.
All this to say, thanks Target for making my life easier, harder, and some other feelings in between today. Also, if you’re hoping to buy new curtains because you ruined your old ones, make sure you check the width of the old curtain before you buy the most common width. It’ll save you a lot of time. And a trip to Target.
OR just don’t ruin your curtains by putting them in the dryer at medium heat.
Here’s to not letting Dwayne and Alfred dirty up these new ones like they did the old.
Happy Day!