Window Dressing

My mum's getting new curtains at home in the front room; the front room being "the formal room". My parents' generation have this thing about formal lounges and informal lounges, and dinner parties and what nots, so the "formal" room rarely gets used unless there's an occasion for it. What luxury, says the daughter (that would be me) whose entire apartment is about a quarter of the size of my parents' first floor. Anyway, my parents have a pretty cool house. It's modern, largely open plan (apart from this front room), has exposed brick (exposed brick!) and lots of style features like slate floors and a glossy white kitchen. No wonder I wanted last week's photo shoot there.

So, back to the curtains. We're finally getting rid of the only un-modern drapes in the entire house (swags and tails, throwback to the early 90s - like the equivalent of floppy curtain hairdos on teen boys). We looked online for a little clean line inspiration, and here's what caught my eye at Living Etc.

Now mother dear wants a pelmet, although I did insist that if she gets pelmets, there will be no swags and certainly no tails. However, I see her point: a pelmet at least creates some structure and focus - how about this one, I suggested (still no reply though):

Then I quickly got distracted and started looking through for stuff for me and my windows instead. When we first moved into the big family home we have now, I was about 11; I had forever wanted down-to-the-floor-curtains in white (what good taste) but I wasn't allowed (white would catch the dust, she said). I have no idea where I must have seen these drapes, but I always thought they looked like ball gowns skirting the floors. So these down-to-the-floor curtains certainly aren't white but mega cool on style with the bright colours next to each other...

I also, when about 13, went through this vaguely hippy phase when we'd all listen to indie music about heartache while doing our homework. I hung up fairy lights above my bed, and a chunari dupatta up on one of the smaller windows in my room (see, clearly this interior design obsession thing was growing even then). Chunari is crushed, tye-dye silk - pretty (my sister-in-law designs dresses made from them) - but this picture below is a far more grown-up version of using Asian fabric, by using a sari border to trim the curtains, a really workable way to bring in pretty patterns without overdoing it on the "ethnic" front.

One of the biggest design mistakes in my own apartment was my curtains. They simply don't stand out the way I thought they would, and the flecks of lime and orange running through the silk that I thought would "pop" just don't. Maybe I can just start cutting up old saris if I can get my hands on any... I'm sure my mum has some somewhere...