Monday, April 4, 2011

I've got the shower curtain blues.

Despite my passion for interior design, I never used to be that concerned with bathrooms or shower curtains. I lived in my parent's home until I got married, so I was stuck with whatever solid colored vinyl curtain my Mom had picked up from the Dollar General store.


When I registered for my wedding gifts, I tried to consider how things would be in the rooms of our apartment. The bathroom was a mess of blue and faux wood, so I had no idea what to pick. I ended up choosing a curtain that was a navy with a silver and gold celestial theme. It was cute, there was shimmering thread around the designs to satisfy my magpie tendencies, and it was easy to find towels to match.






When we moved from that apartment, I knew those things had to retire because our new bathroom was all cream with a taupe-y beige tub and toilet. Yes, it was just as beautiful as you'd imagine. I got lucky when I found a striped curtain from Ikea that included a few stripes in the same shade of taupe-y beige. (I am fairly sure the one pictured is the one I had.) Because one of the other stripes was a rich red, I got to pick out fluffy towels from Kmart in that color.






Note: I was picking red fuzz off my body post-shower for a good while before the towels stopped shedding after many washes. Red towels are serious business, guys.


I lived with that curtain for four years before we moved again. It was fairly grungy and it was tossed into the trash. After living with just a liner in my new place for a little while, I managed to find a gorgeous curtain on clearance at Target! I got two of them because I have issues with feeling like I must have backups of things I love, and they were less than 9 bucks each! Isn't it lovely?






I paired it with some gorgeous Fieldcrest chocolate brown and dusty aqua (like the birds) scroll towels from Target and solid dusty aqua towels from Kohl's and Tony found a somehow perfect striped bathmat from Walmart to complete the look.

I found out later how this particular curtain became kind of a big deal among Internet bloggers. Seriously, you can't google "Target bird toile shower curtain" without being overwhelmed with links like this one or that one or this other one or that other one over there or projects like this one or even this one! You get the idea, right? I even noticed it in an episode of The Secret Life of the American Teenager!






This brings me to my current dilemma. I need a new curtain for this place! I have more freedom in a lot of ways, in this bathroom, because it is black and white tile. Classic! I have come across dozens of curtains I've loved, but none of them really felt perfect until I found this picture...






Vibrant! Bold! Beautiful! And since it would be the only floral thing in the room, it wouldn't be too painful for Mr. Bethany to endure seeing on a daily basis. It just felt like it would fit this classy beautiful image I had in my head for how my bathroom here could look! But as I looked around to see where I could get the best deal for it, I saw that while most of the images online were exactly like the one above, some weren't quite so lovely and vibrant.






Cue the sorrow. This muted version looks nothing like the vibrant version I adored. It is more grandma's country cottage than the vintage Hollywood starlet retreat I pictured. But I had hope! Since almost every image was like the bright one from Sears, I thought perhaps that was how it really looked. I couldn't find any pictures of it in any homes, so I sought out reviews. The only ones I found were from people that said it was much bolder and bright than the coordinating bath accessories, so that just seemed to make it almost a guarantee that I'd get my precious curtain in the vivid pinks and reds and greens! So, I found a good deal on an Ebay auction, and I went for it!


And it arrived.






Decidedly more like #2 than the one that wooed me. The thing is, I could TRY to make it work in the space. But I can't seem to get over how stretched out the images are on the curtain.






Such a small detail, I know. But it bugs me. Because of a mix-up at the post office, I didn't get this until it was too late to return it to the Ebay seller. So I will either keep this and use it, or try to sell it to get my money back. If you made it through this entire post, I thank and congratulate you. Now I need your opinion! What do you think? Does the stretched out image seem like a big enough deal? Is it more Reba than Marilyn, like I think? Help!

5 comments:

  1. I can't really tell how it looks in the package...you should take it out, hang it up..then see how you feel about it. If it doesn't work, throw it back up on Ebay and start again!

    ReplyDelete
  2. That is what I will probably have to do, Mandy.

    *sigh*

    I wish I wasn't SO detail-oriented!

    ReplyDelete
  3. As per the Facebook thread, "just do eet"!

    ReplyDelete
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