Infinite Ideas - Design Your Dream Home

Design your dream home

Interior design ideas for house and home makeovers

Infinite Ideas with Lizzie OPrey

Previously published in paperback as Create your dream home

7. Curtain call

Frame your windows and let the fabric do the work. When you smarten up your sashes or bring colour to your casements, you are complementing a colour scheme or fitting in with a particular look.

Do you want casual drapes running on curtain rings and a pole or are you looking for a more formal treatment where the curtains are teamed up with a pelmet and dressy tiebacks?

Your choice of curtains should reflect the mood of the room. Keep it simple if you are living in a modern environment, a neat pencil pleat heading and plain pole for example, and go OTT if you have a classic look in mind, and I mean indulge your windows with pelmets, tiebacks and tasselled trimmings.

There is a plethora of different looks for your curtains but you should always be generous with the fabric that you use. Whatever the style of the room, the curtains should comfortably cover the window; if the fabric has to be pulled quite flat to meet in the middle they will always look cheap, cheap, cheap. Allow a minimum of two times the width of the window and a maximum of three when you buy it. (You can go for more but it is only necessary for the most opulent of designs.)

Those clever designs that seem effortlessly to pool on the floor can look amazing. This look works better with light fabric that flows and drapes easily; anything too heavy will bulk up on the floor into a heavy pile rather than sink down into a light pool.

FABRIC CHOICES

Never buy fabric for curtains based on a tiny swatch. You will have no idea about how a print will look when it is made up into curtains if you have only seen a small square of the design. It would be a bit like buying a still-life when the artist has only sketched a single apple: how are you going to know what the overall finished piece will look like? The best way to get an idea when you are buying fabric for this job is to grab the roll off the shelf in the shop and pull out a metre or two so that you can see the complete repeat of a design. No sales assistant in the soft furnishings department worth his or her salt will frown on you doing this and if they do, just stare them down. After all, if you are dressing two or three windows in the same room you might be investing a large amount of money.

Depending on the place that you are decorating, look to lovely shears, muslins and voiles for rooms where you want the light to flood in. They have a luxurious air when allowed to drape in generous swathes. One trick to add a more formal touch is to hang them behind a pelmet which is covered in a contrasting fabric. Choose damasks, heavy linen and textured silk when you want to make more of a statement with the drapes when they are closed. There is no doubt that you will have already made a decision about your colour scheme when you come to choose the fabric but think about the different effects that patterns can achieve. If you want to create the illusion of extra height, then opt for a design with a vertical stripe. If you want to add width, then pick a material with a horizontal design.

Just a note on poles. If your fabric is opulent, choose a suitably grand pole and make sure that the finials are dressy too. For sheer designs, keep the pole understated something that ends with a simple curl would be fine.

Take the time to research your fabric choices and match the treatment to the mood of the room and you are on the right road for creating gorgeous windows.

How did it go?

QI have chosen a patterned fabric for my curtains but its quite sheer so they will need lining. What type of fabric do you suggest I use?

A Have you ever thought about combining different fabrics? A pattern lined with a stripe looks quite special when you can see a little of the stripe when the curtains are pulled back. Use a tieback to make sure you can create this look. Youll need to manipulate the fabric a little so that the stripes show. If you then use some of the same material to make up a couple of cushion covers it ties a scheme together beautifully.

Q I have a small window on one wall in the dining room is there anything I can do to make it seem bigger?

A Its easy to alter the proportions of a window by careful positioning of a pelmet and pole. If you fix your pelmet so that the bottom edge just barely covers the top of the window frame, no one will see just exactly where the window finishes. Allow your pole to extend each side to one-third of the width of a small window. When you draw the curtains allow the inside edge to just brush the sides of the frame. No one will be able to guess just how narrow the window really is.

Heres an idea for you

If you have a room that isnt overlooked, consider leaving your windows bare of any traditional treatment. With any kind of view outside this creates an amazing impact when people walk into the room. If it seems a bit bare, pick a mixture of vases of different heights. Arrange the same kind of flowers in each receptacle and place in front of one or two panes, keeping the tallest to the side panes of the run of windows. Alternatively use the sills to display pictures or photographs, propped up against the glass and moved around on a regular basis to change the mood.

Defining ideas

Either those curtains go or I do.

OSCAR WILDE

It is god in the house when the curtains lift gently at the windows.

ELLEASE SOUTHERLAND,

African-American author

8. Work that room

Get the best out of your home office. You are saving a ridiculous amount of time by not travelling to and from work each day when you set up an office at home. But if the environment isnt functional and your use of the space less than efficient, you may not reap the benefits.

In creating a work area at home you want it to be able to operate independently from the rest of the house.

Have you thought about converting a garden shed or garage into a work area? Or having a dedicated building installed in the garden that you can then make into an office? I have even read of an office being constructed in a tree house, so think laterally about where you have space that could be used (and just imagine how lovely it would to be stuck up a tree all day!).

If you arent lucky enough to have a dedicated room, what are your office options? You need to create a space in another place and the dining room is a perfect spot for doubling up. There is already a table and chairs (although you should invest in a dedicated work chair you are going to be sitting for several hours a day and dont want to end up with backache). You probably already have plenty of lamps and good dedicated lighting in the dining room and adding another piece of storage that wont look out of place shouldnt be too tricky if you pick a unit that matches your existing colour scheme.

If you need to adopt a corner of the lounge, try and make sure that you position your desk on the same side of the room as the door and preferably behind where it opens into the space. That way, if you dont tidy up at the end of everyday, a cluttered desk isnt the first thing that people see when they walk into the room. I would urge you to invest in a screen. Whether you opt for a Japanese-style paper design, an old-fashioned fabric piece or even a wooden screen, this can be moved into place to disguise the work area and moved out of the way when you have nothing to hide.

Avoid working in the bedroom if you can. You need to get away from the office and if work is on your mind when you go to bed, and within easy reach, its a recipe for an unsettled night.