Curtain is almost the first thing one would notice on entering a room. They are also the first soft furnishing project to attempt in a home. Curtains can be put to many purposes, both decorative and practical. They are used to insulate a room, to give privacy and to control light and glare. They are not meant to act as sunshades. Use window blinds inside or awnings outside to counteract the potential ravages of sunlight. All rooms need finishing touches, we find these in accessories such as lovely lamps, cushions and beautiful pictures on the walls, but it is curtains that complete a room's décor. If you imagine a beautifully appointed room without curtains, you will soon notice the resultant discord and lack of unity, the feeling of emptiness, in spite of lovely decorative touches, makes your realize that the room is incomplete without curtains. There are rare occasions when it would be impractical to hang curtains, such as over laundry tubs and kitchen sinks. In such, use a colorful window shade.
Not many rooms are simple and straightforward. Every room has its own needs and deficiencies, which must be reckoned with before you plan curtains for specific windows. Quite often you will find that the window themselves are part of the problem.
First, consider the purpose and function expected of the curtains, then decide how best they can be used to enhance the room. Are they for a bedroom where afternoon naps and Sunday morning sleep-ins are routine? Curtain which cut out all daylight will be needed here. Is the room sunless and bleak? If so, light weight sheers or Terylene curtains will allow as much light in as possible and give daytime privacy at the same time. If unlimited light is needed, hang curtains on tracks, which extend beyond the width of the windows on each side, so that when the curtains are drawn open to their fullest extent, they will expose all the glass area of the windows and only cover the wall area on each side of the windows. This is also a good idea if your want to create an appearance of width on narrow window, or to preserve a lovely view without blocking most of it off at the sides, which is what would happen if curtains were hung in the usual way, i.e. sides in line with the width of the window.
Curtain can change the apparent size of the room. If you want a feeling of more space in a small room, hang curtains in the same tones as the walls. This does not necessarily mean that they should be of the same color as the walls; they may be complementary colors if you wish, but the degree of color intensity should be the same. However, if the curtains and walls were of the same color and tone, the feeling of space would be intensified, and this to could be very dull. It would be more interesting to have patterned curtains with colors that match the wall color in general tones; the pattern should be small to encourage the feeling of spaciousness. It is also a fact that lightweight fabrics help create a feeling of spaciousness more so that heavier fabrics.
If the room is large and you want to reduce the feeling of size, hang curtains o heavier fabric and in strong colors that contrast in depth with those of the walls. If using patterned fabric, choose large and definite motifs. Repeating the same fabric in loose covers or bedcovers will knit the scheme together and create a coziness lacking in a large room. Badly proportioned and indifferently placed windows can be found as often in new houses as in older ones. Problem windows are a fact of life. There is one in nearly every house. This is an occasional cross we have to bear, so treat it as a challenge. You will be the winner in the end, just wait and see.
Curtains also help the acoustics of a room; they act as a buffer against sound and noise in the same way as carpets do. Ever noticed how different a room sounds when you remove curtains for cleaning.
Apart from all the physical reasons for having curtains, there is also the all-important psychological one, which should not be too lightly dismissed. Of course why have curtains if you live on the eighteenth floor of an apartment building, where privacy is no problem and the view is endless and unimpaired by other buildings? You are one in a million, and won’t need curtains if you can stand black patches of nothing on your walls every night without feeling the least bit uneasy. For most of us, it takes more than a stout heart to brave the intimidating emptiness of night pouring in around us. Even with a stout and stoic heart, and excluding witches and such, does anyone really like living with nocturnal black? Who, under these circumstances, would want to do without curtains, when, with just a flick of wrist, you can shut out gloom and bring in comfort and peace where a moment before there was cheerless threatening night? Even though you may only draw your curtains closed at night, you will still want the windows to look co-ordinate from the street in the daytime. Nothing jars the senses as much as a hodge-podge of different colors seen from outside the house. Because curtains are not meant to be use as sunshades, you should either have blinds or, if it is only for privacy you want, have sheer curtains in a neutral shade that is common to the color scheme in each room. This allows you freedom to create each room scheme individually, so that you can have different main curtains at each window. This way you won’t have monotony inside the house while retaining uniformity outside which is really quite important. Uniformity outside may sound dull in theory but in reality it creates a happier mood than would a variety of different colors seen from the street. For this reason also, line all your main curtains in the same shade of lining, just in case you do have to draw them closed in the daytime or do not have blinds. Not to have blinds is an unwise decision to make in our hot sunny climate.
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