Windows from the Inside Looking Out

Windows from the Inside Looking Out

Whether you live in a new little G.I. house of Colonial design, a California ranch house, an old Victorian home on a shaded village block, or a city apartment, you are probably more window-conscious than you ever were before. For today, as never before, architects and builders are providing us with houses that furnish more big windows. Across the country, home owners are remodeling their houses to provide for picture windows, corner windows, and other large expanses of glass to allow more sun and light inside, and to bring indoor living in closer contact with the out-of-doors.

If you are lucky enough to have this kind of window area in your house, you are probably concerned with the problem of providing the right curtains and draperies to obtain suitable privacy and still make the most of your windows. You want to frame your windows and make them an exciting part of your room, and yet you want this large space to be a pleasant drapery that you can draw across the window at night. Draperies and curtains on this large scale are expensive to buy ready-made, and hard to find in the right materials, colors and patterns for your room. Making them yourself will prove a satisfying experience.

And because you are more conscious of the more important windows in your home today, you are probably looking around with a new eye at your other windows. Once you have mastered the art of measuring, cutting, sewing and trimming described in this book, you will probably want to start improving all your windows, from the dormers in your expansion attic to the windows in your master bedroom, bringing to all your rooms the softness and pleasing privacy that only draperies afford.

Had this book been written as little as five years ago, there would not have been much to tell you that you couldn't have picked up from your mother or grandmother. But today there are many new things being made to beautify your windows, from glass curtains made of nylon and Fiberglas (mildew resistant, crease resistant, easy to wash and unnecessary to iron) to ready-made valances, complete with fluorescent light for illuminating the draperies and bringing out the beauty of their color or pattern.

In addition, styles in home decorating have changed or perhaps the word is "increased" since today besides the still lovely traditional styles, there is a modern and corresponding emphasis on newer colors and textures. Now decorators tell us that the large areas in a room, the walls, floors, ceilings, and drapes as well, must not be distracting colors should be neutral, and the most successful decorating is that which relies on the accessories and one or two carefully chosen spots in the room for vivid color. While this remains a matter of taste, no matter what period your room is decorated in, you will want to select modern fabrics that are dust-resistant and easily cleaned or laundered, and you will want to achieve enough skill with your sewing machine and scissors to get that clean-cut, authoritative, contemporary look to your creations.

You have probably discovered that a change of draperies adds new life to your house, changing its entire mood and atmosphere. Once you have learned what there is to know about such details as mitered corners and how to cut swags, you will probably want to do creative sewing the best way to style your windows for your room, whether it means a new kind of ruffle trim to match the flounce on your dressing table, or finding a somewhat different and original way to cover a valance board. You will want to change your window styling with the seasons, finding crisp sleek fabrics and treatments with restful, cool colors for summer, and warmer, livelier patterns and color and nubbier fabrics for winter.

And you may want to extend the techniques of window styling to other parts of your house, to curtains for exposed closet spaces, wall-to-wall curtaining for windowless walls that could use a fabric background.