For several months I was just too overwhelmed to take on the "curtain project". I would measure windows, show up at a store and stand there brain locked. OK, confession time again. I am not a good decision maker. I find it stressful to decide what color, style and size. Also, it is the money. Window treatments get spendy and after spending our pockets empty each month on furniture, bikes, etc. it was hard to plunk down the cash for something "extra". OK, third and last confession...I am a bit particular. (I guess since we are being so truthful, we might as well call it what it is, picky.)
We got by these months without curtains by just closing the metal shades, something again that was new for us here in Tokyo. We hear our neighbors pull these closed as early as 5 PM and open them as early as 5 AM. Rattle, rattle. Bang, bang. No sleeping in around here. Japanese use these metal shades for protection against burglars (...not that there are any...) and when there is a typhoon. We use them to keep the sun out in the morning (it gets bright about 4 AM) and to keep the rooms a bit cooler in the hot summer. I did make extra curtains out of old dark blue sheets to put up behind our regular curtains to block out some of the bright sunlight. 
Here are some pictures of our bedrooms. For our room I was able to cut 2 sets of curtains to use for 3 windows. Our bed is just a futon mat on a wood frame (that Tim built) set on plastic storage drawers. This works great. It's comfortable and allows us to store winter clothes, etc. out of sight. Also, it is easy to store when we go on home assignment. Since our room is so big, I am able to have my "desk" (actually it's just a folding table with a table cloth (again easy to store for home assignment and versatile too). This gives me a place to put my sewing machine when I have a project going. All the rooms have nice American style closets where we can hang clothes, an extra blessing.
The boy's rooms are actually 1 big room with a wall-divider pulled closed to make into 2 rooms. We were so thankful that we received 3 mattresses, 3 bed frames and 2 dressers free from other missionaries within the first few weeks of moving in. 
I recovered an old lamp with some denim material for the younger boy's room. I also made some cute throw pillows with patches of old jeans to add a little life to those old, boring blue bedspreads. I love the swatches of jean material with the pockets, seams, label, different stone washed colors and even a worn hole to give it a lot of character. I covered old throw pillows so this project didn't cost me a cent (or a yen!). The only down side is that it is a little hard to sew through several layers of the thick jean material.
You can see the narrow veranda outside the sliding door in the younger boy's room (we have a sliding door off of our bedroom too). It is great for hanging laundry on sunny days. It is also nice because these sliding doors look out onto an empty lot and trees in the woods.
Here are some pictures of our bedrooms. For our room I was able to cut 2 sets of curtains to use for 3 windows. Our bed is just a futon mat on a wood frame (that Tim built) set on plastic storage drawers. This works great. It's comfortable and allows us to store winter clothes, etc. out of sight. Also, it is easy to store when we go on home assignment. Since our room is so big, I am able to have my "desk" (actually it's just a folding table with a table cloth (again easy to store for home assignment and versatile too). This gives me a place to put my sewing machine when I have a project going. All the rooms have nice American style closets where we can hang clothes, an extra blessing.The boy's rooms are actually 1 big room with a wall-divider pulled closed to make into 2 rooms. We were so thankful that we received 3 mattresses, 3 bed frames and 2 dressers free from other missionaries within the first few weeks of moving in. I recovered an old lamp with some denim material for the younger boy's room. I also made some cute throw pillows with patches of old jeans to add a little life to those old, boring blue bedspreads. I love the swatches of jean material with the pockets, seams, label, different stone washed colors and even a worn hole to give it a lot of character. I covered old throw pillows so this project didn't cost me a cent (or a yen!). The only down side is that it is a little hard to sew through several layers of the thick jean material.You can see the narrow veranda outside the sliding door in the younger boy's room (we have a sliding door off of our bedroom too). It is great for hanging laundry on sunny days. It is also nice because these sliding doors look out onto an empty lot and trees in the woods.Also, from the pictures you can see how close our neighbors are on all sides. Even though their houses are just a few feet away, our upstairs bedrooms have a reasonable amount of privacy because of where the windows are located, we look out onto our neighbors walls, roofs or trees rather than peeking in to any of their windows. 
