"Window Coverings By the Book"

If you buy them in a store, the clerk refers to them as drapes or curtains. If you discuss them with an interior decorator, you refer to them as window coverings. No matter how you reference them, they are a big ticket item and once you have them up, you are going to be living with them for a number of years. Because of their cost and because they are going to be hanging around for a long while, you should explore all the options available before making the purchase.

At the Library, there are a number of recent books on “window treatments”—another all-encompassing word for curtains, blinds, swags, shutters etc. Titles include: “Curtains and Blinds”, “Two-Hour Window Treatments” by Linda Durbano, “Step-by-step Window Treatments” by Jenny Plucknett, and “House Beautiful Windows” by Sally Clark. Currently, plantation shutters are very popular and in many cases supplant curtains for decorating windows. Venetian blinds have also been resurrected—and I’m not envisioning those skinny little blinds of the 70’s and 80’s. These blinds harken back to the dust catchers of the 30’s and 40’s.

When my wife and I were exploring “window coverings” with an interior designer, we already had an idea of what we wanted because we had been paging through the Library’s magazines related to home decorating, particularly ”Traditional Home”, “Architectural Digest” and “House Beautiful”. These magazines specialize in the latest decor for the home, including window treatments. From our hours of research, we came upon what we thought was just the perfect treatment for some of our windows---the naked curtain. That’s right, and no, it’s not like the “Emperor’s New Clothes”! The naked curtain is a way to use fabric to simulate the folds in curtains without the pleating, that goes into the traditional type of drapery. With a naked curtain, the drapery rod has a bunch of rings on it and each ring has a small metal clip attached. The fabric is secured to the clip so that it drapes across the window in natural folds.

In conclusion, once you have finally decided on the window treatment and have them in place, the trick is to avoid looking at any newer interior design magazines as styles change but your new curtains will be there for a long while.