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Blogging about gardening in zone 4, marriage, our golden retriever and life in general.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Kitchen door... Curtains?

I love the French doors in our kitchen. They let in so much light. They make grocery-hauling in super easy. They are a huge energy loss in the winter... Wait, what?



 Yeah. Remember last winter when I used a tension rod and a doubled-over quilt to insulate these doors? It worked well; as noted the time or two that I pulled the curtain back and found frost on the inside of the door.

We've added some weatherstripping to the bottom, so hopefully that helps. But I'm also a big believer in curtains as insulation. I LOVE our double cell, top-down/ bottom-up, cordless shades. They make such a difference in the energy loss around a window area. Believe me, if we could have afforded triple cell, I would have done those. I rave about them to everyone I know.  It's astonishing to have the top down halfway on the window, and look down and see a layer of frost in the little pocket between the window and the backside of the shade below you.

So of course, with this door, I'd love to have a a giant top-down/ bottom-up shade installed. In my mind we'd keep the top down halfway, essentially blocking the bottom half of the entire doorway from the trim to trim. We're supposed to only come in on the tile doorway in the winter, wet shoes and all, so this shouldn't be an access problem. It'd be a solution that saves us energy, while still providing great light into the space.

That would only cost us... let's see, carry the one... an arm and a leg. So the next alternative would be insulating drapes that we can at least pull shut to block the doorway on the coldest of nights. Kind of like the curtains my mother in law sewed from post-holiday sales tablecloths at Target for the dining room.

But that begs the question. Should the curtains for the kitchen match those in the dining room? Should they be hung at the same height (probably)? Should the curtain rods match (probably, again). Would it be okay to put curtains up in the kitchen only in the winter, but leave the curtain rods bare in the summer? Could I put up curtains that are mostly red with a gold stripe?


AND, for extra credit on this quiz: Can you spot Harlow in the photo below? Helper Dog!!!!

Tell me internets, what should I do?

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