The small living room is one of the most common domestic design challenges and one of the most frequently misunderstood. The prevailing advice — use light colours, use mirrors, choose small furniture, keep it minimal — addresses the wrong problem. The goal of a small living room is not to make it appear large. Simply […]
Curtains that were beautiful when first hung gradually lose that freshness. Creases develop — from being pushed to the side when open, from washing and rehanging, from the natural settling of fabric over time. Dust accumulates. Odours from cooking, pets, and general household life embed themselves in the fibres. The curtains begin to look lived-in
When people talk about curtains, they usually focus on fabric, colour, and length. What is less often discussed – but equally important to how the finished curtain looks – is the heading style: the method by which the curtain attaches to and hangs from its rod or track. The heading style determines the fold and
Eventually, each curtain buying trip leads to the same point: should one choose cotton or polyester? On the surface it seems like a simple question, but the right choice hinges on what factors matter most in a given household, room and budget. A person who gives top priority to natural fibers and durability will probably
A room with high ceilings is one of interior design’s greatest gifts. The space, the light, the sense of volume — there is something about a ceiling that sits well above the standard eight feet that makes a room feel fundamentally more generous and more impressive. Period townhouses, Victorian terraces, Georgian rooms, and contemporary high-specification
The curtain rod is the least glamorous part of any window treatment, which is probably why most people give it less thought than the curtains themselves. This is a mistake. A wrong curtain rod – a different type, wrong finish, wrong weight rating – will ruin what curtains do at their best. Curtains that drag,
Bay windows rank among the prettiest architectural details that a home can feature. They protrude from the wall, thus not only adding the illusion of space, but also allowing light to enter the room through three sides, while at the same time, they impart the house a charm that windows with flat fronts simply cannot
There is a reason that block print fabric has been one of the most prized textiles in the world for over four thousand years. The technique — carving a design into a wooden block, loading it with dye, and pressing it repeatedly across fabric by hand — produces patterns that no industrial printing process can
Walking into a room that had been professionally designed — a luxury hotel suite, a beautifully photographed sitting room, a show home that makes you stop in the doorway — you notice almost always at the windows something that is rather tricky to identify right away. Somehow, the curtains look simply perfect in a fashion
There’s something special about the light in a room with linen curtains that is difficult to describe and nearly impossible to replicate with other fabrics. Its warmth but lack of weight, filtering but not blocking out, softness but not diffuseness make natural linen an amazing domestic pleasure — you experience it yourself and you understand
