Taa Daa!!!

I finally figured out what I hated about the townhouse living room. Not enough soft furnishings. Yesterday afternoon, I figured out how to rectify the lack of windows....

Another place to put curtains. The Victorians often curtained doorways. If they could, so could Tessie.

I found some fabric in my stash that went well with the wall color and the fabric on the wicker and went to work.

There are tutorials for curtains elsewhere on the blog, so I won't go into deep detail. I used the "Hundreds of pins!" method of pleating. I prefer that to using a comercial pleater. I don't like pleats that look like a washboard...

If you use this method, especially for the first time, make sure that all of your pins have the heads facing away from the top and bottom of the fabric and are taught.

One pleat at a time. The first pleat has a small piece of wood glued into it to keep the pleats vertical. After that, I start at the bottom of each pleat and work to the top. Each one gets a pin at the bottom, at the middle in line with that one and the top ones fan out. There are a few extra pins in the top half to hold the curved shape.

Then I spray them with unscented extra hold hairspray at least twice, letting the hairspray dry thoroughly between sprays.

In this case, I let them set overnight, so that they would be nice and stiff when I went to take them off.

I decided to make a cornice board from the fabric left over from the sofa and chair.

I drew out the shape on graph paper, cut it out and used it as a pattern for cutting illustration board. Then I built a 1/2" deep, three sided box behind it. I covered and wrapped the box with the fabric, slashing where needed.

This particular cornice will never be seen from the back side, so I didn't bother to line it.

I decided that it needed a bit more fabric between the draperies, so I pleated a shorter piece to cover the top of the archway.

Assembly was the easy part. I glued the draperies and valance in place and then simply glued the cornice over the whole thing.

The tiebacks are simply short pieces of the cornice fabric, with a glued hem at the top and bottom...

Tessie is very happy with the whole arrangement. She can now make a grand entrance into the living room and she can close the drapes to hid the dirty dishes.

It definitely softens the look of the living room. Slowly but surely, I am getting out from under this townhouse. I will feel like a great weight has been lifted when I can call it done. Back to work!

See you tomorrow.