apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I don't see anything wrong with the colour of your curtains, but the style is a bit...colonial? Maybe a more masculine type of window covering like a shade, or sliding panels, would be better. I'd also try to instill a bit more colour in the room, maybe with a plant or two, some sort of textiles around your seating area, a couple pieces of art for the walls, that way, the window treatments might not be such a glaring contrast. Your place is very nice, but it looks a bit plain and heavy.

The curtains were purchased out of necessity, a stop-gap until something really grabbed me.

And I don't want to go too masculine, lest my fiance kill me.

Hang your curtains from the top of the walls, ie right at the ceiling ... more generous that way, more glamorous, more grown-up ... use plain-panel curtains, hung straight to the floor ... white? off-white? definitely need a heavy linen for crispness ... in any case, the simpler your curtains, the better your life will be. And get some more lamps in that room, to balance out the illumination.

I would not do curtains, but rather natural reed, or matchstick blinds in the brown tone that is in your rug pattern. Also, I would introduce another chair, per se, but maybe a bench under the windows? The room seems to already have enough furniture -- so I am thinking simple lines, so as not to add weight to the room.

The room feels quite heavy. Are you married to the room color? Are you renting or are you allowed to paint the room? If so, I'd cool the room down by painting the walls something neutral or perhaps a soft green to go with the rug. Perhaps pull out a color in the rug and paint an accent wall. Find some plain or striped fabric that coordinates with the rug and have curtain panels made that hang from the ceiling. If you want to go quite modern you could forego the curtains and go with some bamboo/reed blinds. Chairwise I agree that something lighter in scale would work well. I probably wouldn't do something upholstered.

The one thing I can't really do is repaint.

This was my first real attempt at decorating a room, and you've all really hit the nail on the head... it feels way too heavy.

I wouldn't repaint. Curtains are the right color, just wrong style like it was mentioned above. No ruffly thing on top. Go for simpler more straight lines. Plants will help. So would some nice art over the couch.

As far as extra seating, some sort of wooden side chairs. Either the same color as the coffee table or you can even go with a lighter wood just not too grainy (ie Oak, stick with a maple or something similar -- and not too light).

Maybe move the chaise to the other side, so that it doesn't close in the area off either. It is easier to maneuver around a couple of side chairs than a chaise.

Whoa typed too much.

I'd get drapery panels that are closer in value to your walls, so either a merlot like the walls, a darker taupe or brown. And hang them outside and above the lines of the windows. ANd I love the look of matchstick/bamboo shades with stationary side panels.

As far as third piece of seating, I'd either do:
1) Same color as either piece, but different finish (so, a velvet the same color as sofa, or a leather the same color as the chaise.
or
2) Pattern. Some paisley or stripe that gets all colors together.
3) None of the above: a rust, navy, eggplant or DEEP olive.

And when you get the chair, that chaise is SCREAMING to go in the bay window.

Okay, maybe the screaming is one of the voices in my head, but the chaise would be suh-weet there. Snowy day, glass of merlot to match the walls, stack of shelter mags... heaven!

aww, a deeper red? Darn. I thought it was a tomato-ish red. I got all excited because I just saw a cute little house here in Buffalo with Tomato Red and shiny bright metal siding. The metal mixed with the tomato red is absolutely vibrant. But since your space is a deeper red, what about some sort of darker metallic within the space? Might be neat.

As for the curtains, I might replace them with a more modern style shade in a natural wood or woven fiber in a tan close to the color of the rug. See Smith Noble for inspiration: http://www.smithandnoble.com

There's a couple of ways to keep the room from feeling so heavy, and I love the idea of taking the curtains all the way to the top of the wall, and keeping them cleanly straight up-and-down; for one thing, that will pretty much cover up a certain amount of that very dark red, and that will help a fair amount. If you do that, though, you'll be going pretty formal, and for that, I think I'd go ahead and do a very clean-lined cornice at the top of that entire bay-window area and have all the curtains bank between the windows.

Another way to make it feel a little less heavy might be to do wood blinds, and if you do that, you could either acknowledge the floor color with them, or do something like white, like the window frames, which would keep them in that part of the room's palette. By being literally off the floor, the room will feel a little lighter in that way; by being white, it won't seem all that relentlessly masculine, though, so maybe your fiancee could stand it?

Basically I think the relationship between the rug and the wall color is the biggest problem, because red and green are complete opposites, and yet they're not even given a similar degree of darkness in common here.

I think I'd be tempted to get a half-circle sectional in that bay window area.

I don't find the room heavy at all.

I think the wall color is fine. Pull back those curtains at the top right away - they're really making the room drab. I'd get simple straight curtains (no frill at the top), hung from the top of the window frame. I'm not sure this exists, but I'd look for hardware to make a single rod that wraps around the bay. I'd keep the curtains light, cream with shots of light green (to match your rug) or pale gold threads running through it. Something on the nubbly side, like barkcloth, as opposed to shiny. I like the idea of matchstick blinds too. I can't tell what kind of view you have - you could always get blind that work from the bottom up, to obscure the view but let in light, if you need to.

I'd also move the chaise over there, with either a floor lamp or a small table with a table lamp on it. The room could benefit from more light, and particularly more balanced light.

Add some artwork, particularly a large piece over the sofa, a few pillows and a throw, and a chair in a similar neutral to the chaise (no lighter). That should warm/brighten things up nicely.

It's hard to tell by the (bad) pictures, but we chose the room color from the red in the carpet. Maybe that's the wrong thing to do, I'm very new at all of this, but I liked the idea of a richer darker color in this room. And, I still do, just needs lightening.

I love the straight panel curtain with wood blind idea... brilliant and I'm going to do that first. Then move the chaise to the window and find a neutral small-scale chair for the left of the couch.

Artwork over the couch is definitely a priority, but I've had bad luck hanging pictures on our 100 year-old horse hair plaster walls. If anyone knows how to do that better, please fill me in. It's too crumbly for any anchor solutions I've tried.

And thank you all so much for all of your great comments... looking forward to reading more and trying out these great solutions.

you're doggies seem to like the room just fine

i think this chair would pick up the curves in your rug and would look nice in this cream color
http://www.anthropologie.com/anthro/catalog/productdetail.jsp?_dyncharset=ISO-8859-1&id=76104&parentid=LIVE_FURNITURE_CHAIRS&pushId=LIVE_FURNITURE_CHAIRS&popId=LIVE_FURNITURE&sortProperties=&navCount=6&navAction=poppushpush&fromCategoryPage=true&selectedProductSize=&selectedProductSize1=&color=nat

As others said, use heavy hidden tab curtains in a cream or sand linen or velvet hung from the ceiling to the floor...

Introduce some whimsy with a few select large pillows in striking unexpected fabrics....maybe something like this (don't know if the color is right, but you get the idea?)
http://reprodepot.com/mababl1.html

add a large green plant/tree and a piece of bold artwork
and abslolutely move the chaise into the bay!

How about adding some interest - using some of these?
http://www.nel.com.mx/nel/projects/fill_in_the_cat_3.htm

I like the idea of getting floor to ceiling curtains in a nice, nubby off-white cream. I feel like going green here is going to make the room waaaay too matchy matchy. If your walls AND curtains match the rug then that makes it hard to squeeze in other colors. Seems like any other color added through the natural process of accumulation with be sorely out of place.

The only other problem I see here is that you need to balance out the fact that your sofa, coffee table, tv and tv stand are really dark. I would tackle the easiest to replace - the tv stand. This would be a nice place to add a nice light wood tone or again, white. With the cream colored curtains it would coordinate but not necessarily MATCH. Then introduce the artwork, plants, and some pillows with some hues nodding to said artwork (not red or green).

I meant to mention that on your TV stand I would go really long and really low to balance out the fact that your TV is big. At this point it is too tall. You could even go with several inexpensive IKEA coffee table in a row. The Lack is like $20-$30 tops, comes in maple or white, and has a shelf below.

I'm assuming you don't have picture-frame molding. You could hang a (light) piece of art from the ceiling with fishing line, or you could buy or create some kind of stand to go behind the sofa, that the art could hang from. Or you could put something right on the wall; paint, decals, wallpaper/decoupage.

I don't find the room heavy, just a little unbalanced and underlighted.

The curtains need to be higher and wider -- I might suggest going as far as to make it a virtual wall of curtains there -- the chaise in the bay, and a small table nearby for P(2)'s glass of wine.

Not sure what the problem with hanging something over the sofa is -- perhaps from a picture rail near the ceiling, if the wall is difficult. I'd go for something in muted colors but with a lot of graphic punch.

We have 80-year-old plaster walls and we hang heavy artwork using long drywall screws screwed in with a drill....yes it does mean patching if you want to move the artwork later, but even though we rotate our artwork regularly, it seems that the permanent placement works. Lighter canvases and frames are fine with regular picture hangers nailed in the wall...I've found that it works well to put some masking tape over the spot where you want to nail--it minimizes the crumbling. One thought when hanging artwork....hang it lower than you think you should, it looks better. (I'm not sure of the proper height by designer standards, but I know it looks more cohesive when the artwork is just a few inches above the furnishings)