83 and holding with the heat pumps. I went out back earlier for a cigarette and thought about diving in, but grabbed a cold beer instead, LOL!!! Most of my pools are now in the high 70's to low 80's. This is a great time of year in the Gulf Coast areas. Catch the water at your favorite temp and let your heater maintain it. Although it costs, it isn't nearly as expensive as a heat from cold to swimmable at Christmas time. I usually run the heat pumps until the Sunday after Thanksgiving before turning them off. As the outside temps drop, my pool, very large, becomes cost prohibitive to keep heated into the real winter. Right now is a good time of year to swim in the low 80's. On sunny afternoons it feels cool for a few minutes, but on a cool evening it feels very warm indeed. See Ya, Kelly

I'm surprised this thread is still here. I finally finished dying all 8 panels. I moved some rods from the kitchen that match the ones in the family room and now have panels on both french doors also. The additional drapes, along with the dark color has made the family room cozier and more casual. The drapes are only 84 inches and I need them to be 105". I have decided since it's rather dark in that room now, that I am going to add an off white/cream piece of dupioni silk about 2/3 of the way down. I'm thinking 60" of the charcoal silk, a 30" strip of off-white and then another 15" of charcoal. Anyone done something similar? Should I make the measurements more like my inspiration pic below or since my silk is so dark, do you think I need a wider stripe of the lighter fabric?

I am a seamstress. The previous posters were correct in suggesting you may need more panels to make your drapes sufficiently full. No "professional" is going to hand sew your drapes together. As a professional, to do a professional job, she will have open the seams at the sides, which means undoing the top and hem as well, to stitch the panels together. She should either serge the seams together or use a French seam. The entire top seam will have to be ripped open to add the pleating tape and re-stitched. Generally, there needs to be four inches of fabric at the top to cover the pleating tape. You can have her make the pleats for you, and they will be permanent. Or you can buy the more expensive hooks that make the pleats by themselves. The work of the seamstress is greater than you'd think, because she has to take the vertical seams apart before she sews the panels together. The entire top hem will need to be picked or razored apart, the tabs removed, pleating tape added and a new seam at the bottom edge of the pleating tape. She will then re-stitch the hem where she took it apart to stitch the panels together. Razoring all the seams apart carefully and putting them back together, adding pleating tape, re-doing the hem, I'd estimate $250 to $275. She should ask to see them, first, though, to make sure there's nothing that would make them taking them apart more difficult.

If you like them, keep them and let them be as they are at 84" above the floor. Unless you are capable of doing some sewing to make changes, I would not advise that you try to put them all the way to the ceiling. And, it is probably not cost effective to pay someone to do this for you. If you still do want to have them to the ceiling, your options are to either create a valance at the top to disguise the fact that they are short of the length, or to add a decorative panel at the bottom to lengthen them. Both solutions require sewing and neither is ideal. If you really want curtains that long, you need to buy, or sew, curtains that are that long! Your window is quite small and high up on the wall and I am guessing that you are trying to make it look more ferocious than it really is by puffing it up. Look at something like cellular shades, or blinds, or shutters, or even sheers to cover the window and then add either a functioning curtain or decorative side panels. A curtain that is hung on a rod with rings will be functioning. The curtains that you have chosen appear to have what is, essentially, a rod pocket. It may be designed to create pleats, but it is still a rod pocket and is a stationary curtain. Unless you run your rod well out to each side of your window, this curtain will be obscuring most of the window space. This curtain requires a certain amount of space on the rod for stacking. A rod and ring assembly requires much less stacking space. I have incorporated rod and rings on every curtain in my house and I find that I can use one width of deco fabric and create a nice panel that covers my 32" wide windows suitably. Of course, I line them. I have always sewn my own. In this case it is so easy that anyone with sewing skills can create a nice lined panel with just a little research into the technique. You want to have at least a one inch side hem and, preferably a double turned four inch hem at the bottom. Lined curtains filter the light so much nicer and they hang so much nicer. I am one who desires for something to have both function and beauty and my suggestion would be to buy curtains that are long enough for the length that you want and to mount them with rings so that they can be both beautiful and functional and be drawn away from the window to hang beautifully at the sides when not in use. I never thought much of window dressing just as decorative. That is like those fake outside "shutters" that get put on so many exteriors. Why? Overall, though, your windows are not that generous and the room appears to be a bit dark. I am assuming that this may be the only window in the room. Perhaps you should seriously consider some treatment that does not obscure the open space of your window and is abbreviated in design and that has a nice amount of function. My daughter put up white shutters in her windows and I love the fact that they are contained and tight in the windows, yet they allow as much or as little light and privacy as desired at any one time. Shutters may not suit you, but you should consider one of the hard treatment alternatives. Once you have established a more permanent treatment for the window, you can easily change whatever you choose to use to decorate around it, as your changing tastes may be. That is one reason that I love my chosen style so very much. The treatment requires a minimum investment in fabrics and they are easy to sew, easy to mount, and they are easy to take down and clean, or make new ones. On one set, I used a very nice linen fabric and, I added as an after element a side band of a pretty paisley print that is sewn separately and tacked on along the inner edges, under large vintage mother of pearl buttons. It is truly unique, special and quite lovely. Also, this side band can be easily replaced by any one of any other fabric, or just completely removed. I had a collection of these very large vintage buttons and wanted a way to use them. Don't obscure or clutter up your one source of outside light in that room!