Bye bye shutters

I took a plunge and decided to remove the custom shutters that covered our large window in our living room and also seen here in between our living room and sitting room. These shutters were here when we bought the home, and by the state of them they had most likely been installed over a decade ago.
The main reason I wanted to remove them was their lack of ease when trying to operated them. We spend a lot of time in this room in the evening so we preferred them shut for privacy, but during the day I would have loved to be able to open them and let the light in. Doing that was a lengthy process that usually involved me struggling with the somewhat dilapidated shutters, until frustration set in and I would just shut them.
Here they are in their lovely putty color goodness, the other option besides removal was to repair the broken parts and somehow paint them a more complimentary color of white. I started to think about how difficult it would be to paint moving shutters, and I quickly decided to take them out, it started to hurt just thinking about the free time that painting them would involve.
(the flash really makes the yellow look bright, its not really this color in real life)


So here we are today. I took out the shutters and whipped up some linen curtains last night. Now we have privacy at the flick of a wrist! Its so easy to "swish" them open and closed just like that. I even think they look better.
I still have some repairs around the window where the shutters were attached and bit of sanding & painting, but I love the difference so far.


I mean look at that view that we get to see now that the window is open, and the light poring in is great. The shutters darkened the room so much that during the day we would need the light on. So it just proves that decoration really should be based around practicality more than anything.
I love seeing our giant oak tree out front, I can't wait till there are leaves on it again.


The brown linen curtains are just more fitting in the room than the gray putty colored shutters ever were, and best of all they fit our life style.


The only thing I wish I could have done was make the drapes wider. The window is 98" wide and my linen source only has 59" width fabric. So after sewing & hemming the 2 drape panels I made just barely cover the window.
Ideally I would have just bought 2 of these 100" wide x 96" long Belgian linen drapes from RH, but at a whopping $767 + tax I thought making them myself even if they would be half the width it was good enough!