The other remake-

Yesterday's post was supposed to be about two remakes in one home, but I only showed the living room.
The second was a really pretty balloon shade in the upstairs sitting room.  Liz from Paris Interiors asked if we could turn it into something more tailored and modern.
My job was to take this apart and make it into a flat roman with trim around all 4 sides.

Which we did!  Liz was completely over the moon at the outcome.

The original shade was unlined; we added a semi-sheer poly-cotton lining from Ado.  Because the bottom hem was covered with the tape, we machine stitched it for security, but not before first hand-basting it in place.  For a weight bar, we used a white Dofix hem bar which also helped keep the bottom line straight.  We prepared the shade then turned it right side up to apply the trim.

Now you can imagine that I was nervous about a geometric patterned flat braid around 4 sides with 4 corners to miter! 

I carefully laid out all the trim, centering the motif on each side, to make sure I could match the pattern, and hand-basted each corner before sewing the diagonal seams.

Trimming these seams was the scariest part!  Sewers have to have a strong risk-taking streak, or else we'd never do steps like this.

After snipping the outer corners, the cut edges were tucked away and bound with strong upholstery thread.

Dofix Bortenfix tape was used to adhere the trim to the shade.  The shade was first hand-basted at the board line to ensure that the lining and face would stay together.  Here the excess at the top is being trimmed away, and the shade is ready for re-mounting.

I will confess that the pattern was not totally perfect on all four corners.  It was difficult to manipulate the tape into the right size, with perfect pattern matching, and without distortion.  This corner would not cooperate no matter what I tried, so I pulled out my embroidery and darning skills and used color-matched thread to disguise the mis-match.  Up close, as in this photo, you can see my handiwork, but in the room- it's completely undetectable!

 

Another tidbit: the creases from the center pleat of the original balloon style was very difficult to remove.  Luckily the fabric responded positively to a ton of steam and Crease-Away.  Nevertheless I couldn't get the creases out of the top 10" or so.  In the workroom it was really obvious, with the overhead light; but I decided to just trust that the whole shade was so awesome that the creases wouldn't be noticed.  And guess what- even I could not see them once the shade was in the window.

Two successful remakes

OK let's get this clear, no workroom loves to work on or remake stuff another workroom has made.  But I always will honestly consider it, and will accept these projects if they make sense to me.
Here are two we re-installed last week for Paris Interiors, and both were hugely successful.
Today's post features the living room, where the ivory linen sheer relaxed shades were beautifully made, but too plain, and the clutch system showed through.  Liz wanted to add short valances with trim detail (from Samuel and Sons)  to add definition to the windows and also hide the clutches.
Before:

After: the self-lined voile valances that we created achieved everything Liz hoped for:

The 7/8" grosgrain ribbon hid the board and defined the top line, and the swirly banding hid the clutch components.

Having the right tools for the project made it easy to accomplish quickly and accurately.
The first step was to pull a thread on the voile to get the straight of grain and prepare the cuts.

Dofix Bortentape was the right product for applying the trim.

Using the gridded table canvas and a clear quilter's rule, the grosgrain was aligned and steamed into place.

Skinny strips of Bortenfix were applied to the fretwork trim.

And again, the gridded canvas tabletop markings were visible through the sheer which made it simple to position and apply the trim.

The voile was folded right sides together, and the finished width marked for sewing.

Turned, pressed, and double-checked, the valances were perfect.

All that remained was to serge the raw edges together.......

.....and staple them to the existing shades.

 

A make-over

A NYC client was dissatisfied with some recently installed treatments and I was asked to assess them and propose a way to make corrections.  
First let me show you the "after" picture:

When I arrived I was dismayed when I saw the depth of the challenge.   Here's a quick glimpse of what I found when I first visited this home:

The valances needed complete remaking, as the calculations clearly went awry and left no way to correct the existing treatment.  The fine satin required better fabrication techniques than the factory-caliber treatment it was given.

This talented designer worked brilliantly within parameters that he did not choose.
The decision was made to eliminate the valances to lighten up the room.  I had the opportunity to re-make the panels, by hand, with fresh imported Duchess Satin and wool/linen Greek Fret trim, and re-work the silk sheers, making them 10" longer to up fit into the recess.  (Yes, 10" longer.  THAT took some serious magic.)
The designer's choice of hardware was absolute genius:  rectangular Lucite poles with brass fittings, so the gorgeous matching 5" trim on the soffit could be seen through the Lucite.
6" cartridge pleats allowed the satin to drop in sleek, smooth columns.

The soffit was 12" deep.  That depth plus the returns on the brackets required a 15" return on the drapery, and it needed to be cut to shape around the shaped molding and faced.  Each panel was a slightly different length, and the depth of the cutout varied with each panel as well.  We labelled everything carefully and miraculously avoided any mix-ups!

The return needed to be held rigid.  My original plan was to insert a support into the pocket created by the facing.  It kind of worked, but not quite well enough, so we went back and actually stapled the returns into the underside of the soffit.

Satin in itself creates challenges, because the light enhances every ripple and dimple.  The heavy trim was not only on the vertical lead edge, but also across the bottom.  We experimented with sewing it on both by machine and by hand, but the satin puckered no matter what.  So, guess what?  I bought a Dofix to apply this trim.  

 

The fabrication and installation were so intense that I really didn't take the time to capture as many photos as I now wish I had.  The take-away: both homeowner and designer were thrilled with the make-over. 

A bunch of new tools and gadgets went a long way toward moving this project forward efficiently.  I'm itching to do a separate blog post about those.