Roman Blinds and Blackout Blinds

Villa Nova Curtains, Blinds and Pelmet

Georgina Paix2021-03-03T15:35:52+00:00Blinds, Curtains|

These Villa Nova Kendari fabric curtains, pelmets and blinds were commissioned by the very talented designer Cathy Emmins. On the surface these curtains, blinds and pelmet looks like a ‘fairly simple’ job but the reality is a bit different. I am sure that we are not on our own, having issues with the range of faux silks which have been launched in the last 4 years or so. In fact we have started recommending this type of fabric for blinds only – with excellent results btw! When the fabric arrived in the workshop – we opened it to find a recommendation from Villa Nova. We needed to allow an extra 20mm to each cut and overlock cuts immediately … tbh my heart rather sunk..

We duly overlocked every cut – this is essential. It is stretchy, very stretchy – but across the weft (selvedge to selvedge). There is no stretch whatsoever across the warp. This makes things a bit tricky. After a bit of trial and error we managed to get a decent hang by using slip stitch to fix the interlining and then ladder stitch top fabric…… this fabric needs a lot of securing!

Like all other faux silks this fabric works very well in the blinds and the pelmet. The pelmet needed to look good from the back as well as the front – as it is over a set of doors which you walk through to and from the garden. The pelmet is therefore lined flush with the same fabric as the trim – which is Designers Guild Rothesay in Birch.

Would I want to use this fabric again… without a shadow of a doubt – its a bit tricky but the results are good and so far the best faux silk I have used re hang and overall result.

Sanderson King Protea Curtains & Blinds

Georgina Paix2021-10-24T19:04:29+01:00Blinds, Curtains|

The Sanderson King Protea fabric was almost ‘made’ for a room like this huge kitchen, dining and living room in this remodelled heritage house in Sevenoaks. My client fell in love with it and the colours work absolutely perfectly with their stunning new kitchen. The biggest challenge was not just the normal pattern matching but pattern matching right across the room. The pattern is level both horizontally and vertically across all the 3 large roman blind and the 4 sets of curtains , this took a bit of working out, but was definitely worth the time spent doing this.

The curtains have an extra deep double pleat heading – we have made the heading 20cm deep. This is significantly deeper than standard but I think the curtains needed this to balance them somewhat. The poles are Jim Lawrence in Mercury finish which work well in this context with the bay window poles being custom bent to order.

The roman blinds are interlined and lined as well – and if you look closely – the chains are nearly to the full drop of the blind without requiring any fixings to the wall and yet they are still EU compliant. This is because we use some of the best roman blind mechanisms you can get – these have ‘drop’ out chain housings which means that the chains do not require any wall fixing and the draw of them is incredibly smooth. Due to the width of these blinds we have used a 1:1 gear housing.

Blue Silk Curtains, Blinds & Pelmet

Georgina Paix2023-05-19T03:02:01+01:00Blinds, Curtains|

These blue silk curtains with pelmets are a classic, timeless bedroom window treatment – put some contrasting roman blinds behind in the recess and I think that you have the perfect window bedroom treatment. The blue silk is from Marvic Textiles and is the now discontinued Papaver silk, which is incredibly thick – we have actually used this fabric the wrong way round!

It is important to write a note about silk curtains here – silk is not recommended as a choice for either curtain or blinds – this is because the uv causes the fabric to disintegrate. Unprotected – you can expect to get about 5 years use before the fabric will start to get holes down the leading edges. The leading edges are the edges of the curtain that face the window. By installing roman blinds behind and keeping these down especially in the summer – I am hoping to get at least 15 years of use out of these curtains before they start to disintegrate – you have been warned!

Spot The Goring Sheep!