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Old April 16th 04, 11:57 PM
J. Clarke
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MAK wrote:

Hello,
As a new member of this group, I'm looking forward to the threads
here. We have our master bedroom decorated in Mission Oak and are
looking to add some window treatments. Our primary considerations
are light (only 2 windows, but they both face East - not *our*
idea!), style (want to stay as close to traditional as possible), and
functionality (ease of use and maintenance, etc.)

So here are my questions:

1. What suggestions does anyone have on appropriate window
treatments, given these criteria? We're looking at both venetian
wood blinds and roman shades.

2. Does the slat width (wood blinds) or # folds (roman shades) have
a bearing on the Arts & Crafts or Mission style?

3. What about inside the frame vs. outside mounting of either?
Which would be more in keeping with the style? Which would eliminate
the most light? We have cranks on the windows - does that make a
difference? What affect would outside mounting have on how far out
curtains would go (I'd like to make some tab curtains). There's a
narrow aisle in front of one of the windows.

4. If we go with the wood blinds, would you recommend wide or narrow
slats? Light is the biggest consideration here, but also aesthetics.

Thanks in advance for your opinions on these!


You might want to research Frank Lloyd Wright a bit if you haven't already.
Windows were one of his great talents--see what he did and you won't be far
wrong.

While he wasn't precisely part of the Arts and Crafts movement, his work was
influenced by Arts and Crafts and later Arts and Crafts was influenced by
Wright, and it would not be unusual to find Arts and Crafts furnishings in
a Wright-designed house (while he designed the furnishings for most of the
houses he designed he himself admitted that his furniture designs, visually
impressive though they were, were often not very comfortable, so retrofits
were not uncommon).

I just took a quick look through one of my references and in the photos
there I find that he tended to use rather ordinary looking curtains, color
coordinated to something or other--sometimes the woodwork or some other
structural element, sometimes the window pattern (he was big on stained
glass), sometimes something else, when he used anything at all--generally
if it wasn't _necessary_ to cover the window for some reason he didn't
provide any means to do so. He tended to hang curtains from overhead
tracks that allowed the curtains to be moved completely out of the way when
not in use rather than from the modern tracks that cover a single window.
Also he occasionally used plain ordinary window shades.

--
--John
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