Curtains, blinds, drapes, awnings, you name it.
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While this may sound like an ad for a window dressing company, it’s really just a list of all the varieties of blockout and privacy supplies that I despise.
It’s not just me – it’s my husband and children too. As a family, we’ve never met a window hanging we can’t break.
I’ve just spent an hour re-inserting the rings into the tape at the back of the curtains in my kids’ rooms.
I need to do this every few months, because the simple act of opening and closing the curtains pulls the rings free.
I’ve considered telling my kids to opt for one alternative only – open or shut – and stick with it forever. But this, I feel, would defeat the purpose for which curtains were invented.
We can’t have the kind with a pulley and a track, because someone will break it in days (I should probably not say this in public as no one will ever rent a holiday house to us again).
Blinds are an obvious no-no. So many ways to mess up that cord, and the type with a spring will be sure to lose its bounce in no time.
My preference – as a lover of sunshine and fresh air – is no curtains at all. But for some reason, people in my family want to sleep without sun in their eyes in the morning (I tell them God gave us natural curtains – they’re called eyelids).
They also don’t want to live their lives in a fishbowl at night.
We did once live somewhere with enough greenery and fencing to go curtainless, at least in the downstairs areas. I loved it. But unfortunately we now live somewhere with a lovely view and, conversely, a clear view in.
The sturdiest curtains are those ones connected to big wooden rings that run along a pole. But the weakness is always in how you attach the fabric. Just the other day a set of these failed me, when the metal loop that poked out of the ring fell out and refused to be coaxed back in again.
I’ve mended it with a rubber band and wishful thinking: I guess we’ll see how long that lasts.