There is a valance in our bathroom that has been Visibly Very Dusty ever since we had the hardwood floors refinished before we moved in…which was in 2018. Tonight I finally took it down and laundered it. I would love for this to be one of those “And it was so quick and easy and I don’t understand why I didn’t do it AGES ago, isn’t human psychology RIDICULOUS??” stories, and that was what I had in mind when I decided to tackle it. But actually it was a tremendous hassle and I don’t know if it was worth it.
It turned out that, as with many, many things in this house, the curtain rod was put up by an amateur who considered himself Handy—but who, just to give you an idea of the pervasive results of said handiness, wired a bunch of outlets BACKWARDS, so that when the inspector put in his little testing thingie, the little testing thingie registered an Oh No Fire Danger temperature within seconds. (We got $5000 off the price of the house to have an electrician fix those.)
Anyway. Taking down the curtain was perplexing: it was hard to understand the curtain-rod situation, and a cracking sound accompanied the understanding. Laundering the curtain was simple. Putting it back up was a task that broke the curtain-rod situation—or more likely it broke while I was taking the curtain down and there was a cracking sound, but it was while putting it back up that a piece of the assembly broke off. Now one side of the rod is just sort of balanced there, so that one day it can fall down and startle me.
Also: laundering it made me truly understand how ugly it is. When it was dusty, it was easy to think that the dust was the real problem. But now I see it is a valance made of faded 1980s shiny black prom-dress material, and it does not look very nice in our bathroom—which is OF COURSE light grey, as you should have known just from hearing we bought the house in 2018. Light-grey and black are theoretically compatible colors, but no. I would Just Replace It, but it is overwhelming me to think of removing the curtain rod, installing a curtain rod that makes sense, touching up the light grey paint, and choosing a new curtain. I remember doing those exact things when we moved into our first house over 20 years ago, but I was over 20 years younger then, and hadn’t yet started following politics.
Meanwhile, I have also been tearing up the pea-patch in other ways. (I am thinking of charting these energy surges, just to See. I feel as if for much of each month I am unable to cope, and then suddenly I am fixing/cleaning/booking everything.) I have arranged for the twins to attend the open house of a college that looks like it might be a good fit for both of them, and I have forced myself to get over the cost of a motel for that trip. We have started working on the Common App together, and it is already causing me to lose tooth enamel. I have purchased tickets to a musical in the nearest big city, not just for Henry, who is turning out to be a Theater Kid, but also because I love to see musicals/plays and want to see more of them. I have donated blood, and have set up my next appointment. I have panicked about our electrical bill, which has doubled, and NPR says I can expect it to triple; I have walked fretfully around the house turning off things that can be turned off. I have cleaned the dishwasher filter, and have run self-clean cycles on the dishwasher and the washing machine. And of course I have laundered the dusty black valance. (Still to do: calling a chimney service, because the Former Resident Amateur vented the dryer into a fireplace chimney, and that has not seemed like a good idea the entire nearly-four-years we’ve lived here, but nor have I gotten around to doing anything about it.)
Can you just ditch the valance? Frost the glass with glass etching cream, or just put privacy film on it? Then you wouldn’t have to mess around with rehanging the curtain rod.
Good luck!
I came here to say just this! Perhaps the valence does t provide any privacy at all! I got rid of all the useless curtains he in our house, and it’s much brighter!
Yes I vote for Ditch The Valance And It’s Accompanying Broken Curtain Rod!!
We have an ugly light fixture. I bought a new one a month or so ago, and stuck it in a heap of tedious house projects i need to tackle some weekend.
Today I identified and killed the breaker, carried a ladder upstairs, took down the old fixture, tried to install the new one, went to a hardware store to buy the right bracket and screws, installed the new one, and turned the breaker back on. That’s when I discovered that although it theoretically has the same lumen rating as the bulbs in the old fixture, the new LED fixture leaves the corners of the room very dark.
So I took down the new fixture, and the new bracket, and put the ugly fixture back. Now I just need to drive to Ikea to return the new one, and we’ll be back to where we were a month ago!
Home ownership is fun!
Ooof, I feel this post.
And as always, my first was: I could fix that for her if I lived there. lolsigh.
Do you have a scarf or something you can drape instead of the prom dress valance? or some fabric? (yes, I know who I’m talking to, lol. Work with me)
I just thought about running the clean cycles on the washers and I’ll do one now and the other in the morning. Whew!
I have to admit – I needed to look up what a valance is!
We live in a house that formerly belonged to a Handy person and still find baffling things eleven years later. Yay.
The musical sounds like something fun to look forward to!
About the curtain rod balanced just so, my tip would be: zip-tie it.
Writing this as I am (also with an unexpected and all-too-rare bout of fixing-things energy) about to head to my bed room to re-adjust a zip-tied curtain rod solution that is holding steady over ten years after first setting it up, and that was supposed to be a temporary fix. But we all know how that goes. And it actually is the most sensible solution in that spot.
I live in an old brick building, where trying to affix any new things with screws usually results in the wall crumbling angrily at you, and you have to all but cement in the screw anchors to create a hopefully permanent hold (it won’t be). Meanwhile, many of the windows have two inbuilt (embedded into the wall) metal strips protruding from the wall above them, presumably to affix a specific kind of curtain holder arrangement that is unknown today.
So what I did in my bedroom was taking the Ikea curtain rod holders that have a right-angle bit at the end where you’re meant to screw them into the wall, and instead zip-tie the long part ending in the holder-part onto those protruding metal strips. It’s rock solid and visually non-offensive, so I took the win and am not planning on changing it up. Only one of the zip ties slipped a little and one side hangs, so after looking at it for a year (two years? Who can tell anymore) today I’ll get a ladder to move a zip tie two centimeters.
I’m fairly sure that just means then the other side will slip, but I’ll not-deal with that when it happens.
Two thoughts: I bought a little towel rack from Amazon that is made with Command strips. It totally hid an ugly patch from the former owners wonky ring style towel holder. Maybe a command strip solution could work? Also, in the upstairs bathroom I used the window cling to give privacy and a bit of rainbow light. Highly recommend that too!
Elizabeth is so creative so ask her to choose a curtain and rod. Suggest that you install the rod together as no girl/woman needs a man to do handy things for her. Besides, women read directions so it should be a piece of cake. It will be fun! Really!
LOVE this idea!
Curtain rods are infuriating. Do you NEED a valance? It sounds not worth it to replace. Our house was also DIYed by the previous owner, and it has become a running joke that he used screws for EVERYTHING. Like, normally you would hang a picture or assemble your jankey little shelf with a nail, but not him. It’s a big screw every time. There are even screws in the trees.
I’d totally ditch the valance and just go with plantation type blinds. We’ve been in this house five years and there are certain things that I blame on the contractor that built the house and certain things that I blame on the previous owner. It absolutely baffles me as to the how/why these things were done. Also? In the five years we’ve been living here, I finally had the (empty) curtain rod in one bathroom taken down. Usually, it just becomes a “I can’t look at/ignore this for ONE more day” kind of situation.
We did a big remodel and unfortunately the budget just didn’t include the fancy windows with the shades inside them. So when it was finally finished and we moved back in, we put up tension rods and lightly opaque sheers on all the windows.
It’s been 11 years since we finished the remodel and all but two sets of those “temporary” curtains are still up. The two that got replaced? They were in our bedroom and bathroom and got replaced shortly after we finished our bathroom remodel (from a leak, it was nowhere on the project list but who knew that putting 8 different holes in the shower threshold waterproofing would be a problem? Not our contractors clearly…).
We had an amateur painter live here previously. Like random white spots and uneven edges like the painter was very very drunk. I hate it, but my kids are still at the mark up your wall stage so it seems like painting might lead to an angry situation in the near future while if I wait just a little bit more they won’t ruin it. Maybe.
Anyway we had one lime green bathroom. It was awful, just butt ugly. It also had a crooked light fixture. I got a burst of energy while cleaning and decided to level the light – but wouldn’t you know the drunk painter painted with the light crooked. So I could have lime green walls and a crooked fixture OR a level fixture with lime green walls and a big blue spot where the fixture had been. I painted it all white while silently cursing the previous owner