Tag: curtains

Custom Window Treatments for the Double Parlor

Thank you to The Shade Store for sponsoring this post.

The Victorian is definitely a bit lovelier these days with the addition of custom window treatments in the double parlor!

We’ve been here for 4.5 years, and I’ve liked the look of the house with bare windows. I started to realize I wanted to change them last year though. Visually, I knew the extra layer would look nice, and I also wanted the heating and cooling benefits of quality curtains (because 125-year-old windows can be drafty). They arrived a couple of months ago and are indeed everything this home needed! Beauty and function combined.

You likely know that there’s a lot of unpainted wood trim in this house (like, A WHOLE LOT). Curtains help soften things up.

There’s a radiator behind the teal sofa in the bay window. It made hanging curtains there a bit tricky, but I came up with a clever solution! If you’ve ever encountered a similar obstacle, scroll down to the end of the post for ideas on working around it.

I’ve been focusing on style upgrades and finishing touches for the main floor. I chose matching rugs for the double parlor with a greek key pattern late last year, and I love the design continuity between the two spaces. I had thought about doing something similar for the windows — choosing the same fabric for all — but I’m glad I went in a different direction. The library got pale pink linen (“Cameo”) to match the wall color, and the black living room has an oversized paisley print on a warm charcoal background (“Asherton Granite”).

Another new addition to the living room is the giant mirror above the fireplace. The windows are so pretty in its reflection! The doorway to the dining room is a bit of a black hole in this photo — less so in real life, but the northern exposure and proximity to neighbors means it is always dark. The mirror helps bring a bit of lightness to the center of the house, and seeing the curtain fabric in it is much nicer than a reflection of more unpainted wood trim.

I worked with The Shade Store back when I did our entryway for the One Room Challenge. The entry window has a pale pink linen roman shade, and I wanted to continue with the same fabric into the adjacent library.

The window between the bookshelves we added got a matching roman shade, and the curved windows facing the street have tailored pleat curtains. Eventually, I would like to add a custom curtain rod that follows the curve of the wall.

Before & After

I’m so glad I went with tonal variations for each space rather than a contrasting color or bold new pattern. The rooms still look like themselves — just better.

Tips & Tricks

The Shade Store can measure for you, make recommendations, and even handle the installation, but I do have some tips and tricks for you whether you’re hiring out for some, all, or none of the process.

You’ve probably heard to hang your curtains “high and wide,” right? That’s good advice if you want to make your room seem taller and your windows look larger, but it’s not always the right thing to do in every application. Our ceilings are 10′ high — I want to show off that height but I don’t need to make them look taller than they are. The bow and bay windows are contained within the architecture — no need to extend the curtains to make the windows look wider. Instead, I added about 6″ to the width and height for curtains that are nicely proportioned to the windows and room.

I like the traditional look of pinch pleat drapery, but chose a tailored pleat for our home. It keeps the fullness and luxe look of the pleating but takes it in a modern, slightly more casual direction. They have drapery hooks that hang from curtain rings, so they slide open and closed easily.

All of our curtains from The Shade Store are interlined, which has two benefits. Interlining adds weight and fullness to drapery, giving it a more beautiful hang, and it adds to the insulating properties of window treatments. Chicago offers up the worst of the temperature extremes with hot, humid summers and long, cold winters. We don’t have central air, so being able to close the curtains on the hottest days will keep our home cooler (both rooms get a lot of sun). We have interior storm windows for the kitchen to keep out cold winter drafts, but have relied on disposable plastic weatherproofing film for the drafty living room and library windows. We were able to skip that step this year by keeping the café shutters closed and drawing the curtains on particularly bad days.

You can stop into any of The Shade Store’s locations (they just opened their second in Chicagoland this weekend!) to see samples in person and bring home swatches. Everything is online too, and they’ll send fabric swatches to you for free. Take advantage of this option! I had narrowed down my top choices and worked them into a Photoshop mockup, but I didn’t make any final decisions until I had the actual fabrics in my home. Even for something as straightforward as “simple white curtains” there are a lot of options with subtle differences, but of course there are a ton of colors and patterns to choose from too!

Curtain Solution for a Bay Window with Radiator

This old house of ours is filled with quirks and angles. Figuring out how to hang curtains in a bay window was easy enough. Many curtain rods are available with corner connectors, which is what I used to create one long, seemingly unbroken rod that fits the space perfectly. The area behind the sofa was particularly tricky though because of a long radiator in the center.

Custom curtains are less expensive in pairs (rather than individually priced panels), but if I had simply ordered three pairs of curtains sized for each of the three windows, there would have been a visible gap along the bottom where the shorter center panels met the corners.

Instead, I ordered the shortest center pair of curtains sized to the width of the radiator (not to the width of that wall). Then I ordered two pairs of curtains to be split between the outer windows. The skinnier pair went to the outermost edges, while the fuller pair was used to cover the the inner corners.

Here’s a shot of how the curtains perfectly fit over the radiator. You wouldn’t see this from a normal angle because the sofa hides it, but it does look tailored and clean.

Bare Windows No More

I liked both the library and living room before, but adding window treatments from The Shade Store definitely took them to the next level. The rooms look and feel so much better! Curtains and shades always make such an impact, don’t they?

March 5, 2018
Becket Curtain Rods

Grab these Becket curtain rods while they’re still available. Country Curtains is going out of business (they’ve been around for over 60 years).

I bought two sets of Becket curtain rods in aged brass when they were first recommended to me four years ago, and since then I’ve slowly added them throughout the house. They’re substantial at 1-1/4″ diameter, and half the price I’ve seen anywhere for the same size and quality. I’ve recently added them downstairs too, awaiting curtains.

The glass knob finials I have (people sometimes ask if they’re lucite) are lovely. They also have rings for drapery hooks or with clips, and I’ve used their handy corner connectors for my bay windows.

It’s all 20% off as Country Curtains begins to liquidate before closing. The entire Becket collection is right here, and it looks like they still have good stock. I know I’ve recommended them to anyone that’s asked, so if you need curtain rods or already have some in your house and were planning to add more to match, jump on these while you can.

October 16, 2017
One Room Challenge: Week 4 (Rugs, Curtains, Bedding, and Other Fabrics)

I shared a photo on Instagram of the paint swatches, fabric samples, and finishes for the bedroom and den, but let’s dive into it all in a bit more detail.

The wooden hand holding the paint chips represents the wood furniture in the two rooms (two dressers and a sideboard). The brass is present throughout in the hardware choices (curtain rods, vintage dresser knobs), lighting finishes, and a small accent table. You saw in last week’s update how the paint colors from the chips below have been incorporated, and of course it’s all in the design plan. The fabrics represent the duvet cover and sheets, pink linen curtains, and a pair of chairs.

I knew from the start that I would be painting the two rooms different colors and because the bedroom and den are only separated by french doors, they need to go together. The ceiling, trim, and doors would be consistent throughout, but I also wanted to add continuity in other ways. I have a whole-house palette going on that I’m quite happy with (pink, teal, black, white, wood, brass, and a little red) and these rooms fit, but of course there is still room to play! Today, I’m focusing on the rugs, curtains, bedding, and other fabrics. What I chose and why, and how it’s all going to work together.

Rugs

The bedroom is 13×17 and the den is 13×15, so both rooms can handle large rugs. I wanted to repeat the same rug to bridge the two spaces, and I looked to Loloi because I’ve worked with them in the past a couple of times and liked both the designs and the quality. Though I’m often drawn to bold patterns, I was looking for subtlety this time — something beautiful, but that wouldn’t draw too much attention away from everything else. Initially, I had thought about maybe using the Journey rug that I’d styled in our living room. Once I decided to paint the walls that color though, adding a matching rug would have been too much. I suppose I could have used it in the bedroom and a neutral (or otherwise complementary color) rug in the den, but again, I wanted a matching pair. I found what I was looking for in the Nyla collection.

The rug I chose picks up on the wall color of the den, but it looks good against all of the pale pinks I’m using throughout too. And it is super soft.

Curtains and Window Treatments

Both rooms will be getting pinch-pleat pink linen curtains from Tonic Living. I’ve had my sample swatch of that fabric for about two years now, just waiting for the right project! The pale pink will blend in with the wall color in the bedroom, but be a nice relief against the deep teal blue walls.

The bedroom has wooden shutters on the bottom half of the windows, and that’s enough privacy most of the time, but it will be nice to have the option to draw the curtains again. Someone asked me how I sleep in with so much light, and I thought ‘hahahahahahaha — I have three young children, what is this “sleeping in” you speak of?’ It will be nice to be able to darken the room a bit though when we want to. I chose a standard lining for both rooms.

The den does need a bit more light control because we get a lot of glare on the TV. Curtains are going up, yes, but I’ve also ordered Allen + Roth solar shades from Lowe’s. They’ll help with both glare and temperature control, which is a big plus in an old home without central air conditioning.

I spent a ridiculous amount of time choosing the right fabric and options. I went with Marquis in White, 3% openness. I also liked White/Linen, and there was a 5% option too, but I think the brighter white will be better behind the curtain fabric and it isn’t so stark that it will look too modern or cheap, as super bright whites sometimes do. I chose the corded option (it has a safety mechanism to mount the chain to the window so little kids don’t loop it around themselves), and options like a finished hem and matching fascia to keep it as clean-looking as possible. Even though the shades are all about function, I want the form to be nice too.

Bedding

I used to have tons of options for bedding that I’d amassed over the years. A few quilts, a down comforter with various duvet covers, different sheets, and plenty of colors and patterns to mix and match. Then we went from a queen-sized bed to a king last fall, and I gave away all of our too-small bedding to friends and family. Now I have one duvet cover, and I’m up to three sets of sheets. I was pretty jazzed about finding that third set of sheets though, because due to the winking eye pillows on the bed, the patterned dashes look like a million little eyelashes are scattered everywhere. I’m so into it!

So the go-to has been those sheets with the pink duvet cover. I have my Moroccan wool blanket too, and while it looks good (pom-poms!) and is pretty warm, it’s not the softest thing. Plus it’s wool, so we can’t pop it in the wash. It’s not such a big deal now that the weather is warming up and we don’t need a bunch of layers on the bed, but I do miss having a light quilt. I’ll be adding the Boyfriend Matelassé Coverlet from Pine Cone Hill. In what color? Pink! (Nope, Brandon doesn’t mind the color at all. Yes, I’m asked about that a lot.)

It’s a lot of pale pastel goodness, but then it’s all set against the black of our bed. Boom.

Other Fabrics

The sofa in our den is from IKEA (Kivik — I wrote about choosing it here), so it would be easy to pop over to the store to pick up a new cover. I like the idea of keeping it neutral though and I still like the color it is now, so I’m not sure if it will change or not.

Ours is the top left and I like the bottom left a bit more, but it’s not a huge difference. Of course the white is nice and I’ve heard that the cushions clean up nicely in the wash, and the bottom right gray color could work too. The den is getting a throw blanket to match the bed’s coverlet, and there will be pillows in pink, blue, and black and white.

There is a pair of chairs coming from Interior Define. They sell customizable sofas and chairs through their site to customers across the country, but I was able to check out their showroom here in Chicago to see everything firsthand. I loved the Rose sofa and if I could fit it up the stairs, I would have chosen it in a heartbeat! English roll arms, turned legs, a deep seat, and very comfy cushions — perfection. Their furniture can be resized (you can do more than just choose a color!), but to shorten it enough to fit up our narrow stairway would have changed the proportions too much and I don’t want a love seat. Luckily, the same style is available in chair form, so that’s what I went with.

The Rose chair is available in 18 different fabrics and I requested samples of my favorites before deciding on a color. It was a toss-up between the ‘Natural Heavy Fabric’ and ‘Stone Basketweave,’ so I called their customer service department and asked about durability and care. The Stone fabric sounded like a more durable choice that would wear better and clean up a little more easily, and as a mom of three with five pets in the house, I was sold. The chairs are going to look great in contrast with our low, boxy couch.

The last big unknown was the coffee table. I had initially planned on a turquoise velvet ottoman, but I was worried about a timely arrival and it was indeed delayed again. I picked up a pair of slipper chairs two weeks ago from a local furniture consignment store (Divine Consign) and I also grabbed a coffee table at a good price as a backup for the room. I like the shape of it a lot, but it’s knotty pine and while I could paint it, the bigger problem is that it’s too big. If I could shrink the height, width, and depth down by about 15%, it would have been perfect! Ha. So I was on the lookout for another option. Turned legs or carved wooden details, or maybe a different ottoman?

Found it! It’s a “Rug Ottoman” from Annie Selke. Yes, as the name implies, it is upholstered with a rug. It’s actually a more practical choice than the velvet would have been, and they come in a bunch of different colors and patterns. My design is changing a bit (the turquoise is out, and in its place, stripes and turned legs), but I’m excited about the way it’s all coming together! And bonus: Murray’s dog bed is in the den and he’s going to get a little upgrade in the form of light blue and white stripes, also from from Annie Selke. Very cute.

Here’s how all of that goes together.

(Oh, vintage chair. You need a little freshening up.)

We’re coming up on that final reveal! Only two posts left!

Follow along with the One Room Challenge participants!

• Claire Brody • The Curated House • Design Manifest • Driven by Decor • Honey We’re Home • Hunted Interior • The Makerista • Making it Lovely • My Sweet Savannah • Pencil and Paper Co. • The Pink Clutch • Savvy Home • Simplified Bee • Sketch 42 • Jill Sorensen • Orlando Soria • Thou Swell • The Vault Files • Waiting on Martha • The Zhush • Media Partner House Beautiful • TM by CIH

My One Room Challenge Sponsors

Thank you to the following sponsors in this post for generously providing product.
• Loloi • Tonic Living • Lowe’s • Pine Cone Hill • Interior Define • Annie Selke

My One Room Challenge Posts

Follow along from the beginning!
• Week 1: The Before Shots • Week 2: The Design Plan • Week 3: All That Painted Woodwork • Week 4: Rugs, Curtains, Bedding, and Other Fabrics • Week 5: The Lighting

April 27, 2016
Progress?

I’d ordered curtain rods for the bedroom and its adjacent room a while back, and I finally got those up a few days ago. Brandon and the kids were having problems with glare on the TV at certain times, so we needed to be able to block some light during the day. I don’t have curtains for the room yet though (because its future is uncertain while we plan the nursery’s location), so I hung a couple of mismatched, too-short curtains.

Were you wondering if this room could look any worse? Ta da! I did it!

The rods look stupid-high in the picture (I’m aware), but they do look all right in context. Or at least I think they will, with matching curtains in the right length, and some paint on the walls. I’m considering painting out that picture rail too, though I haven’t decided yet. It’s in a weird place, it doesn’t align with the others, and it isn’t original. And something is wrong with either those rods or the finials. They’re from the same line but the screw posts are not long enough for the threads to catch. I had the same problem with one of the finials in Eleanor’s room, but I thought it was a fluke (because 3 out of 4 were fine).

Anyway! The reason I haven’t committed to curtains yet is that if we are keeping that room open to the master bedroom, the curtains should match or compliment each other between the two spaces. A solid color in a slubby, textured fabric could be nice, but then I do love the opportunity to use a good pattern. Here are a few options that would work with the rug and bedding we already have.

top row: 1 • 2 • 3 // center: lamp • bed • bedding • rug // bottom row: 1 • 2 • 3

I may do a pattern in the adjoining room and a solid in the bedroom to keep things from looking too busy, or just go all out with print. What do you think?

April 7, 2014
Speckled Blooms Curtains in My Office

Well, I went and ordered those Speckled Blooms curtains so I could see them in person. They’re pretty. They also don’t go with my rug (which I knew), so now I’ll have to decide which I like better.

If I keep them, I’ll sell the zigzag rug. Then I’ll either bring in the white Orleans rug from the nursery (depending on what we do in August’s room when we get rid of his crib), or I’ll pick up something white and fluffy for the office. Maybe just a little sheepskin for under my chair?

The curtains are pretty girly, but it is my office, so I’m not too worried about that. I don’t know if I’m in love with them though. If I were to really implement everything from my reimagined office design board, they would be beautiful. Without the lovely wood tones from the card catalog dressers (or maybe an awesome vintage credenza), and the added interest of the brass and bright red, they’re falling a little flat.

February 7, 2013
Deciding on New Kitchen Curtains

I now present to you a series of awkward photos in which I stand on my countertops, holding up fabric to the window in approximation of curtains. Ready?

(the photo backdrop)

(the tablecloth)

That’s a photo backdrop and a tablecloth, both by Rifle Paper Co. for BHLDN. I bought them to use in a baby shower theme photo shoot, and as I was falling asleep the other night, I realized they would make awesome kitchen curtains.

The backdrop’s pattern is larger and I thought it might be too overwhelming, but now I think I like it better. Which is good, because the tablecloth is no longer available and it was going to break my heart a little to cut the fabric up. (I’d been searching eBay for another, but no luck.) Which one do you prefer? Wait, don’t answer yet… there’s more.
(more…)

September 19, 2012