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"  If you&amp;#039;ve been following my blog posts, you know that my husband and I bought an old house and have spent the last eight years gutting and renovating it. We&amp;#039;re finally at the point now where we&amp;#039;re doing cosmetic things like hanging pictures. Recently we purchased drapes for the dining room and last weekend we spent a few hours putting up the curtain rod. I find it hard to believe that we were able to do plumbing jobs together and even jointly rewire a whole room, but when we tried to hang a curtain rod, it was like World War III broke out in our home! The first problem was figuring out exactly where to put the rod. Unlike plumbing or electrical work, where building specifications tell you exactly where and how to do things, this job is completely up to you and depends on how you want the room to look. Guidelines advise installing the end brackets at least two-and-a-half inches outside and above your moldings, but this is really a suggestion and not a hard-and-fast rule. In fact, a recent design trend is to place the curtain rod very close to the ceiling to make the room seem taller than it really is. Skip and I spent about 30 minutes trying to figure this step out. We finally decided to extend the distance to four-and-a-half inches beyond the sides of the molding and halfway between the top of the window and the ceiling. I felt hanging the curtains almost from the ceiling was too exaggerated, but did want to make the ceiling seem a little higher than it actually is. For the 111-inch-long curtain rod that we selected, the manufacturer recommends installing two center support brackets. So we divided the width of the window into thirds and mounted the two brackets at the dividing points. As my husband was getting off the stepstool, I realized our mistake: With the brackets in these locations the drapes wouldn&amp;#039;t be able to completely open or close! I guess this would have been OK if I wanted to install tie backs and keep the drapes open but I want to be able to completely open the drapes to let as much light into the room as possible.  So, we had to take down the brackets, patch the holes in the wall, and touch up the paint! Overall, not a big job but a definite annoyance. Instead of two support brackets, we used just one in the center of the window. Once this was done, we had to place the curtain rod on the center bracket and hold it level to mark the location of the end brackets. As our rod is thicker in the center than on the sides, we couldn&amp;#039;t merely line up the brackets. The saying &amp;quot;too many cooks spoil the broth&amp;quot; definitely applied to the remainder of the task ... so I took my 3-year old outside to play and let my husband finish the job!  Glad to say the curtain rod is hung and I&amp;#039;m still married! Be sure to check out Good Housekeeping&amp;#039;s other articles on home decorating: Living Room Decorating Ideas, DIY Decorating Ideas and Behind the Scenes on Trading Spaces. Have any home improvement projects almost led to warfare in your house? How did you weather the storm? And remember, if you&amp;#039;re going to be in the NYC area, come take a tour of the Good Housekeeping Research Institute labs! "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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