I think, after seeing your kitchen and surround that painting first and then adding art might work better. Do you plan to keep that spongey look on the walls or are you going with a plain paint? It seems you have a lot of roosters. Do you want to keep any, and if so, which ones? There are several different looks/themes/types of roosters in your paintings. I think if you are going to use them, you should group them all on a wall together, like a collection instead of spreading them out. JMHO. I am not real fond of the rosy color but it seems you are not either. I think going with a wheat or a sage green, perhaps even a loden green, would be a good idea. It will be much easier to do art work once you have painted if you intend to paint. If you do not intend to paint, I think I would try to organize all the roosters in one area, so they do not look choppy in arrangement and I would not add anything else to the room. It has quite enough.

Hi dana g, all I've done so far is take one of the rods out of the box! At first, I thought there was a problem with the rod because it extended only 24". I called the store and the woman I spoke with told me that BOTH ends extend. I felt so silly, but I think this will work in my favor to disguise the slight difference in the diameter of the rod as it is extended. The panels on either side will probably cover the extension, with only the center portion showing. We'll see. This is going to be a long, slow process for me. Tomorrow I hope to remove the existing window treatments and patch the holes left from them. After that, I can hang the poles. Then the panels will need some slight alterations. I thought you were using actual closet rods, but instead Lowes has drapery rods in the larger diameter. And it's nice to have all the options with the finials, rings and brackets. Good luck with your project. If I fail with the Opus rods, I'll be looking at Lowes, too. Isn't amazing how what seems like such a simple project can be so complicated? Please post pictures of your window when it's complete.

Think about hotel rooms. They so often have a room-width black-out curtain ... and behind it a thin sheer ... and usually some type of non-moveable header (either cloth or wood) ... and they pull open so nicely. While staying in a hotel a year or so ago, I decided that's exactly what I want, so I took a good look at the hardware involved. Hotels have ceiling mounted tracks. Something like this: This ceiling-mounted curtain track can be supported every 2-3 feet, eliminating any possibility of sagging rods as years go by. You can cut them to fit your dimensions, and they're even available in around-the-corner styles. The negatives, of course, are that you'll need floor-to-ceiling curtains, and you'll probably have to do some sewing adjustments to the curtains yourself. Still, I'm going to do this in my bedroom, where I expect to open/close the drapes frequently. I wouldn't do it in, say, the dining room, where I'm going to use plantation shutters and curtains that'll essentially never move.

"Stax ... I did search but didn't find any boards with 7' length. Mostly, they come in 4' and 6' lengths. But, thanks - so appreciate your input." The one I cited was 97" long - i.e EIGHT FEET PLUS I removed it just now.