Curtains for the exercise room

Curtain mania continues at the red brick building.  Now that many of the higher priority curtains are done or on their way, I'm thinking about how to finish off the curtain buying and hanging by turning my attention to what remains: the exercise room, the head house, the guest shower and the pantry.

I realized that part of the problem with the exercise room is that I need to settle on the color palette.  It's painted Farrow and Ball Borrowed Light, which I love.  Here's a photo of the wall paint color from the Farrow and Ball website: 

The other color in the room right now is the dark brown of the 9 foot by 9 foot bookcase, made of the salvaged wood from the red brick building's original ceiling joists.  The trim is white. 

Yesterday, I combed my file of color combinations to see what I could find with pale blue, brown and white in it.  Three variations came up. 

a)  The first is the craziest.  (I think I'm emboldened by victory with the chocolate brown drapes in the master bedroom.)  Those three colors, plus crimson (and black):

Ballard Designs sells a highly rated (and cheap!) cotton twill drape in this crimson:

b)  Those three colors, plus deep dark blue (and maybe a little moss/olive green):

 Ballard sells the same cotton twill drape in this indigo:

I have a small piece of antiqued silk velvet fabric in just the right green, if I wanted to make a throw pillow or upholster the seat of a stool or chair and bring in the green that way.

c)  Those three colors plus a little bit of orange:

For this one I think I would stick with white curtains, rather than going with orange.  I just think that it would be too much orange in the space.  The inspiration photos feel fresh, bright and clean to me because they only have a touch.  I want to make a screen to divide the room when it pinch hits as a spare bedroom - I could see an orange and white pattern on said screen.  Or maybe just some orange in art or even a throw blanket.  I did like the white linen/cotton ones from Pottery Barn and could see getting those again.

I'm a bit hesitant about the whole cotton twill thing because it's so casual, but maybe it will give the room the lightness it needs as a workout space.  It does have the advantage of not costing the earth, which would be good in a space that we only spend a half hour a day in. 

My husband likes options a) and c) and thinks b) is too dark for a workout space.  I'm not so quickly convinced - I've always loved the idea of the exercise space feeling like a men's club library (hence the dark bookcase) rather than being super-bright like most gyms tend to be.  a) would give both moodiness and color but I don't have red anywhere else in the house (not counting the much more muted red brick in the master bathroom) and I worry that it will stick out like a sore thumb.  What do you think?

I think that when I get home I'm going to place a big order with Ballard and try some of these ideas out.  (I need to double check the measurements for the pantry's crewel-embroidered burlap panels that I blogged about yesterday.)  Now if only the hardware were more straightforward (two of the three windows die straight into perpendicular walls, with no space to mount hardware alongside)...