Have you left white sheets hanging in your living room’s picture windows because you can’t decide whether you should spring for custom shades, buy some off-the-shelf curtain panels or hire a home couture pro to whip up some luxe drapery? Oregon Home asked four draperymakers and a window coverings expert to detail what a well-dressed window looks like.
[1. SHOW RESTRAINT IF YOU OPT TO ACCENT YOUR CURTAIN RODS WITH FINIALS.]
You want guests to admire your window treatments as a whole, not point to the ends of your curtain rod and say, “Wow! I haven’t seen a pair of glass balls that big since I inherited Grandma Duchene’s collection of vintage Japanese glass floats!” Finials should be an integral part of the drapery design rather than an afterthought. “My own draperies hang from inch-thick copper rods,” says Dan DeMoy, the Portland-based designer behind DnDy Design, a maker of custom drapery, curtains and duvets. “I just sand-papered the ends and took a blowtorch to them, which gave them a rainbow patina. I put plumber’s end caps on each end and left the rod smooth. If I’m doing curtains for a boy’s room, and the boy is into trucks, I’ll buy a toy truck and use the wheels as finials. If I’m working on a girl’s bedroom and she’s into horses, I might go to a tack shop and buy bridle gear to use as finials on the curtain rods. A finial doesn’t have to be a giant carved acorn. Have fun with them!”
[2. BE BOLD IN YOUR FABRIC CHOICES.]
Drapes are a good way to add color and texture to a space. Mixing fabrics can add visual interest to a room and make it livelier. “My whole thing is to mix and match prints and fabrics,” says ace slipcoverer and draperymaker Kate Nason, who also does designwork as the owner of Chairwear in Portland. “I’ve made draperies out of vintage fabric. If a client has vintage panels that don’t fit her home’s windows, I can add a border to them in a complementary print. I once did silk draperies in two different colors of silk velvet for a client. I used antique sari trim that I cut off the bottom of saris to cover the seams.”
[3. DON’T SKIMP ON YARDAGE WHEN YOU BUY FABRIC FOR WINDOW COVERINGS.]
If you’re out cruising the aisles at your local fabric store and you see the pattern of your dreams for your living room windows, make sure to buy enough yardage or you might find yourself a panel short. “You need a lot of fabric for draperies,” says Nason. “And if you want any kind of pleat or fullness, it’s usually two to three times the width of the window. You have to add inches of fabric for the top and bottom hems, which should be generous: The classic hem is a ‘double four.’ Another thing that you have to take into account with a print is its pattern repeat on the fabric. For a professional-looking job, the pattern needs to match at the drapery seams.”
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[4. IF YOU AREN’T SURE DRAPERY WILL WORK IN YOUR HOME, MAKE MOCK-UPS FOR YOUR WINDOWS.]
The fabric, hardware and labor involved in making and installing drapes can add up to an investment, but there are some things you can do to help you decide whether drapes are for you. “We have 18-inch-square swatches of fabric you can take home, so you don’t have to make a decision while you’re in the store,” says Alice Sayre, a design associate at The Whole 9 Yards in Portland, who’s taught a curtain-making class in the store’s in-house classroom. “If you’re struggling with the kind of window treatments you want, take some thumbtacks and hang up a sheet to find out if whether full-length drapery or to-the-sill curtains look better. If you want a valance, and you don’t know how long to make it, make one out of cardboard. Don’t just guess what you want; give yourself something to work with.”
[5. REALIZE THAT THE WRONG CURTAIN ROD HOLDING UP THE RIGHT DRAPERY CAN MAKE YOUR WINDOW COVERINGS LOOK OH-SO-GHETTO.]
Hardware is part of the overall look of your draperies. If you’ve gone to the trouble to have someone make the perfect drapes, don’t skip on what holds them up! “The curtain rod is very important,” says Sayre. “When you see a rod up close, you might think it looks big with the finial. Well, if the drapes in your formal dining room are 7 feet long, and you’ve chosen an inch-wide rod with tiny finials at each end, by the time you get the curtain rod on the wall, it’s going to look dinky. You often have to buy bigger rods and finials than you imagine to balance out a big, formal drape. Proportions are important.”
[6. DON’T HANG HEAVY DRAPES FROM TELESCOPING CURTAIN RODS.]
If you’ve decided to purchase curtain rods rather than have them custom-made, buy rods that are one piece. “If you’re going to use off-the-shelf hardware, use a solid rod instead of the telescoping kind,” says Certified Window Fashions Professional Jennifer Keating, the co-owner, with Jennifer Wallingford, of Hovel Custom Interior Sewing at Hovel Home Furnishings in Portland, who’s been in the interior sewing and design business for 10 years. “One-piece rods will give you a more professional look because heavy drapes will often cause telescoping rods to sag.”
[7. REALIZE THAT SHADES HAVE EVOLVED FROM THE WHITE VINYL ONES THAT HUNG IN YOUR CHILDHOOD BEDROOM.]
Vertical blinds. Woven blinds from natural grasses. Cordless cellular shades. Sliding panel shades. Faux-wood plantation shutters. Today’s window shade options are endless. “In the mid-1980s, Hunter Douglas created the first honeycomb shade, and that was when it realized shades could be a fashion item,” says John Acree, the owner of Premier Window Coverings in Portland. “The company began to dedicate more research and development money to come with other things, and in the early 1990s developed a shade which has sheer vertical panels with a rotating vane in the middle. That hammered home that window coverings could be a fashion statement. It’s been a fast trail since then.”
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[8. KNOW THAT A SLAT WIDTH IS NOT A SLAT WIDTH IS NOT A SLAT WIDTH.]
When selecting the slat width of wood blinds, seek the counsel of a professional window coverer to advise you on whether you should opt for 1-inch or 3-inch slats. “Ending up with the correct slat width has a lot to do with the size and scale of your space as well as with what you want to achieve from the window,” says Acree. “Do you want more light? Less light? More privacy? Plus, with wood blinds, you want to consider how much light you want to let into the room and how much view. The larger louver will let in more of each.”
[9. ACCEPT THAT SPECIALTY WINDOWS REQUIRE UNIQUE HARDWARE SOLUTIONS.]
If you live in a high-ceilinged loft or have a long wall of windows, you need to choose a drapery hardware system that allows the drapes to hang and function properly. “If you have a wall or a bank of windows, we’ll suggest a track system as opposed to a rod system,” says Keating. “With most rods, you can’t go more than a few feet without a wall-mounted bracket. Large windows need to have hardware that can go for 20 feet without an interruption.”
And don’t let the curved pattern of a set of bay windows cause you to forgo drapes if that’s what you want above your windowseat. There are ways to make the fabric follow the curve. “For bay windows, you can order hardware that have elbows that bend around the corner,” says Nason. “For any style of window, there are all sorts of decorative brackets and batons for opening and closing the drapes.”
[10. IF YOU WANT TO SHOW OFF YOUR WOODWORK AS WELL AS YOUR FABRIC, OPT FOR FABRIC SHADES RATHER THAN DRAPES.]
When drapes are open, not only can they hide architectural features such as window frames, but the beautiful design of the fabric is lost in all the folds. “Fabric shades can provide a cleaner line and allow you to see your woodwork,” says Keating. “Often, a shade shows the fabric better because it’s a flat expanse of fabric. We once had a client with a great damask in an Asian pattern, and we put that fabric in a shade because the pattern would’ve disappeared in the folds of drapery. Shades can show a pattern more dramatically than a curtain can.”
[11. MEASURE CAREFULLY TO ENSURE PROPER SHADE PLACEMENT.]
If you mismeasure your windows, you’ll be out of luck when you put up your shades. There’s almost no way to hide the fact that your shade is an inch too narrow for the window it covers. “For shades, you’ve got to look at where they’ll be mounted, and you have to think about which side you want to pull them open and shut from,” says Nason. “In older houses, windows aren’t square. If you have a bank of windows, they can be off by a 1/4 inch. Even with three windows in one window casing, there’s going to be three separate shards because of the molding in between. I make sure I label left to right because the windows might not all be the exact same size. The biggest disaster can be to have the shades custom made and then have them not fit.”
[12. EMBRACE THE POWER OF CURTAIN LINING.]
Curtain lining can instantly darken or lighten a room, protects your sumptuous drapery fabric—think silk, toile and eco-friendly materials—and can help control the amount of moisture that gathers on your drapes. Work with a pro to end up with a lining that’s perfect for your drapery and the way you will live in a room.
“The biggest mistake some people make is not anticipating their lining needs,” says DeMoy. “The first thing I say to my clients is, ‘I will not charge less to make your drapes unlined.’ From a cleaning point of view, the lining protects your investment because fabrics aren’t $1 a yard like they were when my grandma sewed! Lining provides the function of your drapery whether it’s to insulate or to block out the sun. Plus, lining helps your drapes hang nicer. Lining gives drapery its function; the fabric you see comes down to the mood and emotion you want in the room.”
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[13. IF YOUR HOUSEHOLD INCLUDES YOUNG KIDS, CHILDPROOF YOUR WINDOW DECOR.]
According to a grassroots, nonprofit organization called Parents for Window Blind Safety, a child dies every two weeks from strangulation via the cords on window blinds. As a parent, you can minimize the risk to your kids’ safety while still enjoying beautiful and functional window decor. Keeping in mind that young children are often adventurous climbers, it’s important to realize that window shades hanging in higher windows pose as much of a risk as those in lower windows. “We have many products available with cordless options,”says Acree. “You grasp a small handle on the bottom of the blind to move it up and down. Motorization is another option for cord safety.The biggest issue that the federal government is trying to address is how to deal with a corded loop that a child can actually put his or head head into, so now there are systems that are corded, but have no loop. Another option is a blind with a tassel on the bottom of the cord and the cord must be anchored to work. Since it has to be physically anchored to the wall to operate, the risk is no longer there.”
[14. DON’T ASSUME THAT BUYING OFF-THE-SHELF PANELS FROM POTTERY BARN WILL BE CHEAPER THAN HIRING A PRO TO WHIP UP CUSTOM WINDOW COVERINGS.]
It’s rare that purchased panels will be an exact fit for your windows. “When you buy off-the-shelf panels, they’re typically 52 inches wide or 54 inches wide, and 84 inches long,” says DeMoy. “And, in most cases, they’re not lined. You’re also stuck with the buyers’ colors and patterns. Every window is different in its measurements, and everybody has different feelings on the height of drapes. Custom lets you get what you want and you don’t have to settle. If budget is a super consideration, and you need a 96-inch-long drapery, you can add a 12-inch band of color across the bottom.”
For something that you’ll have hanging for several years, it’s important that you like what you see when you get up each day. “If you buy inexpensive fabric because it was on sale to redo a chair and you hate the fabric, you’ll hate the way the chair turns out and ultimately regret the purchase,” says Sayre. “If you buy curtains because they’re inexpensive, but they never really fit and you never really liked their color and you hate them every time you see them, then what have you saved? I think about it this way: If custom drapery gives you pleasure every time you see them and you know you made the right choice, the cost goes down whenever you look at them because it was such an appropriate choice. It’s worth it to get exactly what you want.”
[15. INTEGRATE THE DESIGN OF THE DRAPES INTO THE OVERALL DESIGN OF THE ROOM.]
Whether you like a 19th-century look or something more modern, you can pick a pleat style to match your décor. “One of our most popular styles is a Euro Pleat, which is a modified pleated curtain that has a very contemporary look,” says Keating. “It’s very clean. It’s not at all fussy, yet it has a lot of fullness and richness and translates well to modern interiors.”
If you find a fabric for drapes you can’t live without, consider designing the room around its pattern. “Most people don’t approach drapes as a design element,” says Sayre. “Most designers work from the ground up: You start with your rug, go to your furniture and then you hit the walls. That’s a safe way to go for most people, but sometimes you should think outside the box and say, ‘Look at this beautiful printed linen with a William Morris design; let’s start designing the room from here.’ Drapes are sometimes the sad little afterthought, but it doesn’t have to be that way.”
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[16. ACCEPT THAT NOT ALL FABRICS ARE SUITABLE FOR DRAPES.]
Fabric used for clothing is often narrower and can have more stretch, which are features that will not work well for draperies. “Generally, we like to use upholstery or drapery-weight fabrics, not dress-weight materials,” says Keating. “That makes a big difference in how the product hangs. A home fabric is wider, so you have fewer seams. The weave and the finish are different. When the drapes are done, they have a more constructed and heavier weight, so they tend to hang better. What you want to stay from is fabric that has a lot of bias-give because it will never hang square.”
[17. DON’T MINIMIZE THE IMPORTANCE OF HANGING YOUR DRAPERY PROPERLY.]
There’s a lot more to hanging drapes and shades than putting up a few brackets. Drapes must be properly spaced and level to look good, and with large installations, that can be tricky and requires more than just a hammer. “If you can’t hang a mirror, don’t hang your drapery rods,” says DeMoy. “You’ve got to get brackets that are 10 feet away from each other perfectly level. For a lath-and-plaster wall, you should never hammer anything or use anything that’s intended for drywall. After I mark and drill my holes, I’ll use an appropriate molly and then set my screw in. Many people think that the screw going into the lath is enough to hold it, but you never know if you’re just biting the edge of the lath. Unless you know you’re hitting a stud, you should use a molly.”
While people often think that doing the installation themselves will save a lot of money, that’s not usually the case. “Installation isn’t as easy as it used to be because of some of the new hardware systems,” says Acree. “We have a company rule that since we offer lifetime service, we have to be the ones to do the installation. Most people who want to do it themselves are looking at it as a cost-savings, but it’s actually a small percentage of the cost. If we were to break down the cost, it’s probably about $5 a window.”
[18. REALIZE THAT YOUR NEIGHBORS DO HATE YOU IF YOU’RE STILL USING OLD SHEETS AS DRAPES MONTHS AFTER YOU’ve MOVEd IN.]
Drapes are part of the overall aesthetic of your home, and your house may look great on the outside until someone looks at the windows and sees a rainbow of fabric colors. “It’s much nicer from the outside if all of your drapes look as if they are the same,” says Nason. “If you’ve got a two-story house, what you want to see from the outside is a nice, uniform lining of white or ivory. A lot of people don’t do that, so the upstairs bedroom has brown curtains and the room next door has pink ones and the downstairs rooms have more colors. It doesn’t look very good when you see all those colors at once.”
[19. PROPERLY MAINTAIN YOUR WINDOW COVERINGS.]
Custom drapes should last a minimum of 10 years unless you start throwing them in the gentle cycle every other month. Window covering experts say you should use a brush attachment from your vacuum no more than once a month to pick up the dust on your drapes.
“You need to clean them regularly or you do a disservice to the fabric,” says DeMoy.
“If your window coverings can’t be taken down easily, put your drapery on your housecleaning list to vacuum once a month with a soft brush to keep the dust from settling in them. For drapes that can be safely washed, send them to the drycleaner because the drycleaner can press them so much better than you can.”
And unless you know exactly what your drapes are made from, just clean with the vacuum rather than dry-cleaning. “With all the multi-blend fibers, you don’t know how the fabric will react to dry-cleaning,” says Sayre. “It’s better to be careful so they’ll last a long time.”
