The house adventures begin

The other day I mentioned carpet shampooing and I know you all are just holding your breath waiting to hear how it turned out.  So it thought I'd share some pictures as I go through my house adventures. You can let me know if I'm boring you to tears.

The only room in the house that has carpet is the great room. It had a giant area rug in the center and when we pulled it up this is what we found.

We had no idea how much discoloration had occurred around the rug.

It's hard to capture in pictures. Especially in such a large room.
At first I wasn't worried, I thought I would just get a new rug the same size to cover it up. But I come to find out they don't make rugs this big. The looms(?) don't come wide enough. I have no idea where these guys got this rug from!  To have one specially made would cost so much we might as well just re-carpet the place. So now I'm feeling pressure to make my steam cleaning work.
I know someone in the carpet business and they recommended Capture cleaner instead of the stuff they give you with the rental. After this, I would totally recommend it too! Here are my results.

There is still a bit of a line on this side, but no where near as bad as it was. I think the dog lived on that side of the room because it was worse for the wear over there. But we can use a new rug to cover it there.

But this side the line is almost non-existent! Wohoo!  And wine stains came up like nothing. So excited.


Now I know ya'll are looking at those windows and you want a closer look at that fabric right?

Oh yeah! There are 5 windows in this room with this fabulous fabric!  /end scarcasm/

I apologize if this is your taste, but it is SO not mine.  What's funny is that when I was looking at curtains in the department store, I think I saw this exact window treatment still for sale!  I'm sure it was put in this house circa 1990.
So time for an update and I'd love your help. I picked up a couple of patterns that I'm considering.

From McCall's 6299 I'm considering the red one:

The bird one (without the birds, just with patterned fabric)

Or from McCalls 5872 I'm considering the reddish swaggy one.

Or should I just do a simple gathered straight curtain?   What do you think?

I need to cover the shades that are under those curtains, and I don't want long drapes. All fabrics are still TBD.  I'm considering some of the new Ty Pennington line, Vicki Payne, and maybe even Anna Marie Horner. But I feel like I should narrow the style down first.

I'm going to attempt to put a poll on here, feel free to leave comments if it doesn't work (or even if it does!). And if you have any great curtains you'd like to share, link me to your photos. I'd love to see them!