Rob and I had a productive weekend, which means I have several fun things to blog about this week.

Probably my favorite is our fun, nontraditional solution for a curtain tieback that we came up with yesterday.

Saturday, we finally decided to buy blackout curtains for our bedroom – several bright streetlights shine into our bedrooms and our flimsy white curtains don't to much to block them.

Plus, Rob is about to get reassigned at work, which means he'll be home more (woo hoo) but may also be working odd hours. We needed blackout curtains so he can be able to sleep during the day, if necessary.

We found adorable curtains (brown and white polka dots – I'm in love!) for a great price. And man, they make our bedroom cavelike, both during the day and especially at night. We shouldn't have waited three and a half years to make this purchase

However, they're a lot bulkier and longer than our old curtains, and must be pushed to the side during the day if we want any natural light at all.

We needed some sort of tieback, but I wanted something sort of funky and not too expensive. Story of my decorating life.

Yesterday, we took the dog to our favorite rural supply store (they allow pets and he loves to clean the free popcorn off the floor for them). We were looking for a tieback and I saw exactly what we needed in the shelf hardware aisle – galvanized shelf brackets.

We paid less than $4 for two 4-inch-by-5-inch brackets. Rob installed them with anchors next to our windows, with the longer side out for corralling curtains. He then bent them a little so they'd hold the curtains better.

I love anything galvanized and this seemed like a perfect simple solution to make our new curtains work for us.