CURTAINS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 October 1938, Page 8

CURTAINS

SOME CLEVER SCHEMES. Possibly you still remember .your excitement last year, or the year before, when you had that room “done up” (says a writer in Modern Home). For quite a long time afterwards , it gave you a little shock of pleasure whenever you came into it. But now even though it’s still in perfect condition it gives you no thrill nor any real feeling except, maybe, boredom. You know perfectly well you cannot afford to have it done again so soon and yet (if you argue out things the way I do) your “background” matters enormously and you are landed with that most dreaded of all household evils —sheer dullness —if you cannot alter that room in some way. There are many ways of altering aroom but to my mind the least expensive and most effective is—different windows! If you change your curtains —if you change your windows, you can change your room. First, take the difficult small bedroom in the usual town home; it is quite impossible to get any decoration or any excitement into the room except in the necessary 'furniture and fitments. But richness can be given to a small- bare room by using a soft corduroy material for bed cover and curtains. i The pelmets can be draped simply and inexpensively. The foldover kerchief curtains just as it were underline the story of the pelmets. Then, quite another problem; a basement sitting room. The clever woman will use her imagination and block up the unsightly window with its area view with* a cheerful summer-time picture of a garden path. She will arrange of course for adequate ventilation and cunning light (all very inexpensive) and a window seat and conventional and dignified pelmet and full-length curtains. The drab basement room is just “saved” by bright walls and this window.

To the woman with a large, oldfashioned bedroom, with huge windows (and possibly a north aspect as an additional apparerft handicap). I would suggest trying a clever scheme I saw not long ago in the bedroom of a wellknown dress designer. One long “Grecian” pole joins the two large windows, and along the length of this the curtain material is draped giving a new sort of pelmet effect. This — actually the sole decoration of the walls —is quite enough and —quite delightful. In any case the change “made” a new room; as it may for any woman who goes round her home, mentally visualising what an entirely different set of windows woulddof or it! Indeed even a change over of curtains from one room to another can have a rejuvenating effect! And it is surprising how many women, when they cannot afford new fabrics, forget that they can themselves dye their old curtains to a new shade.

But if you decide to change your curtains and buy inexpensive new material do remember that it is possible to alter also the design of the “window furnishings.” For instance, you have now two nice but ordinary windows in your bedroom, with straight short curtains, half-length net glass curtains and a pleated pelmet each. Very well —imagine a bright coloured new-style Venetian blind —preferably of light metal; and, draped across a light spotted net curtain with a ruched edging. By day the spotted net gives a pleasant newness to your outlook, and by night the adjustable slats keep out the light but lot in the air.