For winter hangings for the city house, there are many points to be
considered. The curtains are usually more pretentious and costly. They have
less buffeting at open windows, but they have more smoke and city grime. They
also actually serve to keep out the cold that filters in through the window
cracks. Damask, velours, taffeta, woolen rep and handsome linen are most
appropriate for winter city use. They must be made with a formality as to heading,
valance and edging. This is true of living, drawing and dining rooms. Cretonne
curtains are always pretty and advisable for bedrooms; if one wants a more
elaborate and therefore a more expensive hanging, linens are best. The vogue
for linen hangings throughout the house is a practical and attractive fashion.
It permits more frequent renewing, and is a gratifying change after the
voluminously enveloped window hangings of the Victorian period, which were
heavy and unhealthy, their mission seeming to be to crowd out the least breath
of fresh air that squeezed in through the window. Befringed, betasseled,
be-roped and valanced to the utmost, they acted as a dragon to the fresh
wandering little breeze.
If you have them still on hand, take them down and upholster a set of
furniture with them, and put in their place something fresh, sanitary and
simply made. Viewed from the outside, the incongruity of a formal house of
Italian style of architecture with white Swiss muslin curtains and those
beruffled, is impossible. As far as is consistent, the curtains should be
uniform both as to shape and general style. It is distracting to see half a
dozen shapes of hangings on one fa9ade. The quality and color must necessarily differ
in the various rooms, but much toward the desired uniformity may be attained by
using thin cream curtains against the glass throughout the house.
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