Waaaaayyyyy back in, well, summer, I fell in love with these gorgeous drapery panels from West Elm. They were on sale and I snapped up enough to dress all the first floor windows in the farm house.  The color and pattern have helped set the tone of the great room—at least the great room in my mind that will eventually come together, not the current reality. The new loveseat’s gray upholstery comes from these drapes. And the kitchen’s future white cabinets with natural gray concrete countertops backed by a wall of white subway tile with dark gray grout all coordinate with the color scheme set by these panels.

I just love the pattern! Up close it almost looks like finger prints…each dot is somewhat unique. Gorgeous, right?

Recently, we finally decided it was time to dress the windows…not long after Ben realized that sitting at the desk beside the living room’s big window was noticeably cooler than sitting closer to the center of the room. Despite all the work we’ve done to insulate the house, the windows are, like in every house, a liability when it comes to heat conservation. We knew that these canvas panels wouldn’t do much to hold in the heat. And because we are heating the house with a wood stove (rather than a furnace), we are all about heat conservation!

I did some shopping around for lined panels, velvet drapes, wool…but everything was super expensive and/or ugly. Nothing as fabulous as my canvas dot panels and nothing I was willing to live with six months of every year. So, instead of investing in two sets of drapes, we decided to invest in two layers of drapes.

After some digging, we found these 60×80-inch military surplus wool blankets in gray at Sportsman’s Guide. Only $32 for four blankets! I love a good deal almost as much than I love a beautiful drapery panel. These were a perfect fit not only for their price, but also because the blankets’ size is just slightly smaller than the drapes, so I was assured they wouldn’t peek out from beneath, and, I realized once they arrived, that their color was a spot-on match to the West Elm drapes! Score!

We mounted Target-brand curtain rods in black at about 85 inches above the floor (The panels are 84 inches long and the new floor boards will add about three-quarters of an inch to the floor. I want the panels to eventually hover just a hair above the finished floor.) and I installed the panels by threading the tabs on the back side of the top hem onto each rod. Between each tab I put a drapery clip on the rod so that I could hang a wool blanket behind each drapery panels using the clips.

Now, the drapery panels are more like black-out drapes than the airy linen-like panels you see in the West Elm shot at the top of this post. But I’m loving the winter makeover! The drapes are warm and cozy in look and feel—perfect for the cold-weather season. And it will be easy to (literally) lighten the look when spring comes around!

I’m thrilled that we can have the best of both practical and pretty: hefty treatments that hold in the heat and style-savvy panels that make my design eye happy. There may not yet be furniture, and the living room is a total mess in the photo below (hey, real life happens), but the windows look great, don’t you think?