Window Curtain Colors : Choosing the Right Color Curtains When one wishes to tone the general light in a room, she does so by the color of the under-drapes. A soft transparent material drawn full across a window will transform a rather cheerless room into a colorful, pleasant interior. It gives to every object and every corner a different color value. We must avoid, though, getting too strong a diffusion of light because, having chosen and keyed the room to a certain satisfactory tone, we may lose the good effect of the color relations by putting a rich yellowish glow over everything. For that reason deep cream or beige under-hangings are neutral enough and safe, and leave the original general color scheme intact. Often householders will hang yellow or orange or green or even mulberry for the light to filter through, regardless of the fact that they should plan for this general tone in the room before they select the furnishings. In the south room we find the problem of transforming the general tone of excessive sunlight even more difficult. Green is rather unbecoming and not only cools but makes a rather ghastly shadow tone. Blue is even more impossible unless it is a light, soft shade. Mulberry is more satisfactory, as it is at once both cool and warm, and, combined with green as an over-drape, makes a hanging of great charm. There should be no under-curtain of net or scrim to break the effect of the sun filtering through the gauze. A successful treatment for the windows of a country house dining-room is a striped Shiki silk of bright blue and gray with a smaller line of black, and under-curtains of gray gauze. One immediately visualizes gray walls and old-fashioned silver. In a simple country cottage underhangings of unbleached cotton cloth edged with a small ruffle take the place of the prosaic window shade. A pair may be hung at the top sash and one at the lower, on rings which make them thus easily adjusted. With narrow over-drapes of figured cretonne or some plain-colored material, the window treatment would be as attractive as it is inexpensive. Casement cloth curtains with a 1 ½ inch binding of sunfast make a serviceable cottage window hanging. By repeating the color of the room in the binding we do not need any overdrapes. Casement cloth or net, hung with a valance of figured linen, also makes a pretty summer hanging that is unusual and economical. The valance should be straight or shaped like an old-fashioned lambrequin, the curtains hung full from underneath. Choose for the upholstery of the room the same figured linen, preferably with a pattern of a repeat design that can be centered in the valance. The tone of the thin hangings should blend in with the background of the linen. Too sharp a contrast would not be pleasing and must be avoided. For an informal window drapery use white mohair with white silk 1 ½ inch fringe, and at the top of the fringe put a black braid. The over curtains should repeat the black. For example: A black and sapphire blue striped velvet, or a white, mulberry and black figured silk. Make the curtains with plain, straight folds and no valances. The windows will at once be given distinction. The windows of a woman's bedroom may have curtains of gray taffeta with a double ruffle of gray on curtains and valance set on with a narrow blue and black guimpe. The valance may be shaped and in the center may be embroidered an oval medallion in vari-colored flowers. An under-curtain of blue and rose, weighted sufficiently to fall in straight folds, could be used with this combination. Taffeta bedspreads made to match will give the finishing touches to the harmonizing interior. A black cretonne with a brilliant design may be lined with a bright green, giving, as it blows in the wind, just a suggestion of color. Care should be taken to use such curtains in a room where the view from the street has not to be taken into account. A pretty way to make up a floral stripe fabric is to use the material lengthwise in the valance, the stripe finishing the valance as an edge. 
Valance hung between curtains, with a wide border of embroidery or figured material.
A Nile green figured cretonne curtain may have a shaped valance, but a ruffle of mauve taffeta should be put on to the valance to form a straight edge at the bottom. The curtain itself hardly needs any edging - at most a narrow ruffle, or an inch taffeta binding. 
A semi-circular valance and curtains of soft fabric with wide hemstitch to give style.
For a boudoir, chiffon of Jacqueminot rose color may have two ruffles three or four inches wide at the bottom. These may be edged narrowly with yellow, and the cords and drops may be of yellow. No over-curtain should be used. A Chinese pattern linen with deep, rich tones used as curtains may have a shaped fitted valance of dark wine color velvet. This gives a richness to the window draperies that could not be had by the use of the linen alone. For sill curtains a soft green gauze may be topped by a narrow fitted valance of silk velvet. Lightness of drapery is here maintained and richness is given in the valance. Next Page: Making Curtains & Hanging Curtains. | 