Curtains Colour Suggestions and Refurbishing, Part 2

A yellow room takes well to green hangings or certain shades of violet. In a yellow room nothing is more effective than the use of a chintz covered with clear transparent colors of Spring. In the yellow room a light green-blue may be used but with great care and discretion. A breakfast room or porch carries this scheme well.

A pink room is best done with white or delicate blue and lavender. Blue rooms, deep in tone, should keep to blue of varying degrees, relieved by dull yellow or green. If the room is a bedroom, white or green and blue look well at* the windows.

The vogue of black and white is so popular, partly because it permits such a riot of colors and combinations. Black and white, mulberry, a touch of clear yellow, and some dull green this sounds as though it were the recipe for a cake. And, seriously, rooms might be built up of such recipes. We select in our curtains just whatever color we wish to emphasize in our room. Such analysis might save us from many a pitfall.

Curtains may be kept up and hung in cotton bags during the summer an unsightly procedure, but with a small store room and unskilled help, a good method. If the unwashable curtains are taken down, they should be carefully brushed and thoroughly aired and packed away in large boxes. Never pack curtains tightly. It takes all the winter to get the creases out of them. Velour curtains may be sent to the cleaner to be steamed if they are badly crushed. With thin curtains, wash them in the spring and pack them away; in the fall when they are ready to be put up, dampen and iron them. Lace curtains should be washed and starched and pinned down flat to the bed, floor or frame, but never ironed.

Curtains that are faded, soiled or sunburnt at the bottom may be turned upside down, as the top, carefully pleated in, can be so arranged as not to show the shabby parts. Curtains never look as shabby up as they do in our hands, for which we may be duly thankful. Those that we thought quite impossible may be cut off, re-edged and will surprise us with their presentable appearances. Curtains may easily be reversed, the right hand side changed to the left. In that manner the outside edge which is faded and shabby is put next to the trim and tucked under as much as possible; the other edge being comparatively fresh and unfaded since it has been protected by the trim.

Curtains may be dyed, but they do not keep their color. With heavy curtains like damask, they had better be sent to the regular dyer. Light silk curtains can readily be done at home and the expense is nominal.