Custom-made drapes can help unify a room
But you don’t have to spend a lot of money to make a bold look
Q I need your drapery formula. Is it a secret? First of all, where do you buy your drapes? I can’t find anything like them anywhere. I’ve noticed you paint all your spaces white. My rental condo is white, therefore, painting is not an option, but from what I’ve seen from you, drapes can bring in colour.
Second question: How do you know that the patterns of the drapes will work? I am worried that I will buy something, bring it home and it won’t look like how I want it to look.
I’m going to design school! I just finished my undergrad, therefore money is tight!
A Oh, I love getting letters like yours because I am reminded of decorating my first place, which was an all-white apartment where making things work was a challenge. At the time, I had no money for decorating, and when I made a wrong decorating choice, it was upsetting.
The drapes you see of my work in photos and on television are custom made by fineinteriorsbysusan.com.
I definitely have a formula for my drapes. When I want to do something cheap and cheerful, I will buy an off-the-rack set of white drapery panels. The cotton Ritva curtains at Ikea.ca are $29 per pair. Then, splurge on three metres of fabric that you love, and have a “leading edge” four inches (10 cm) wide sewn on the left and right sides of the panel, where the drapery panels will meet when pulled closed. To save money, you can also purchase sale fabric online or at a fabric outlet.
Equally as inexpensive is to cut one-half to one-third from the bottom of your off-the-rack panel and replace it with a piece of colourful sale fabric.
With this fabrication, you get a good dose of colour and pattern on the bottom and a visual reprieve of white or oatmeal on the top. To make this look finished, you will need to add trim or ribbon to cover the seam where the ready-made panel and colourful fabric meet. If you are handy with a sewing machine, you can DIY it, but unless you are a superstar sewing-machine operator, leave the difficult stuff to a pro.
Window treatments get more expensive when the design starts getting complicated. Obviously, expensive fabric will drive up the cost of your curtains, but fabrication can get pricey, too. The more cuts and seams in a drapery panel, the more it will cost. A single drape in one fabric costs approximately $99 per panel.
That, said, I like to have widths of fabric sewn together horizontally to create large patterned and white stripes. The starting price is $190 per panel.
There are a couple of secrets to making bright and colourful drapery panels work in an allwhite room. The colour of your wall should be a predominant colour in your drapery panel. For example, if your walls are pale grey, then choose a fabric with some pale grey. This trick is particularly important with floorto-ceiling drapery panels made from all one fabric, because it will soften the transition between your solid-colour walls and the pattern in your drapery.
To ensure that your drapery panels work, make sure that the colours are repeated around the room. You don’t have to repeat the exact shades in every accessory and upholstered piece of furniture, but repeating the drapery-panel colour in a few spots will keep your home looking unified.
Last, collect as many inspiration photos as you can. The more photos you can give to a drapery fabricator, the easier it will be for her (and you!) to understand what you want.
All the very best with design school.