Curtains for every home

Start with what the room needs at its hardest hour. A bedroom facing east is judged at sunrise, a west-facing living room at five in the afternoon, a street-facing dining room after dark with the lamps on. Specifying for the average hour produces curtains that are fine most of the time and fail exactly when they are needed.

Then think about how often the curtain will move. A living-room curtain may be drawn twice a day; a curtain beside a verandah door may be pushed aside twenty times. Heavily used curtains need a track that runs freely, a heading that stacks without fuss and a leading edge that tolerates handling. Rarely moved curtains can be more delicate.

Finally, consider who uses the room. Owners learn the quirks of a window; guests, children and staff do not. A guest room or a child's room should work with one obvious action, which is why we often suggest a wand, a cord-free track or a motor there.

Curtains rarely have to do everything on their own. The most reliable specifications split the jobs: a sheer for glare, a lined curtain for privacy and appearance, and sometimes a blind tight to the glass for darkness or heat. Each layer then does one thing well and can be replaced on its own schedule.

A roller or roman blind inside the reveal pairs naturally with a curtain outside it. The blind handles the functional work — sun control on a hot façade, or blackout in a bedroom — and the curtain frames the window and softens the room. This combination is often better than asking a single curtain to be both dark and beautiful.

Where sliding insect nets are fitted, the curtain track has to sit far enough forward that the fabric does not snag the frame. Plan the depths together: net, blind, sheer and curtain each need their own clear line, and a reveal that looked generous on the drawings can fill up quickly once every layer is counted.

Fibre choice in coastal Goa starts with two questions: how exposed is the window, and will the house be lived in through the monsoon. Relative humidity in the monsoon months runs well above the levels at which mould begins, with morning readings in the high eighties and low nineties. Anything absorbent that cannot dry will eventually spot.

Near the sea and in houses closed for the season, polyester and polyester blends are the dependable choice because they take up very little moisture. Further inland, in occupied and ventilated rooms, linen and cotton come back into play and bring a texture synthetics only approximate. Velvet and dense piles sit apart: they belong in air-conditioned rooms.

Linings matter as much as face fabrics. A breathable lining protects the face from sun and adds body; a sealed or foam-backed lining can trap moisture against the glass. We do not interline curtains in this climate, because an interlining holds damp through the rains. Weight and body come from the face fabric instead.

Fullness is the single biggest difference between a curtain that looks made and one that looks bought. We generally work at around 2 to 2.5 times the finished track width, depending on the fabric and heading. Below that, even a fine fabric reads as a flat panel; above it, lighter fabrics can bunch and heavier ones become difficult to stack.

The heading decides how those folds behave. Pinch pleats give a tailored, traditional line; wave and ripple-fold headings give even, continuous folds and a narrow stack that suits contemporary rooms and sliding doors. Poles look right in heritage rooms with a visible cornice; ceiling-fixed tracks suit modern rooms and layered arrangements.

Hardware near the sea should be aluminium, marine-grade stainless or properly powder-coated, never untreated mild steel, which rusts and stains the plaster below it. Old laterite and lime walls need different fixings from modern blockwork, and we check what sits behind the plaster before committing to a track position.

The dry season is about sun. Window glass blocks most UVB but lets UVA through, and UVA is what fades dyes and weakens fibres over time. The leading edge of a curtain on a west-facing window takes the brunt, which is why a protective lining pays for itself on sunny glass and why saturated colours are best kept away from the strongest light.

The monsoon, roughly June to mid-October, is about moisture and stillness. Onshore wind carries salt, the air stays close to saturation for weeks, and a closed house has no drying cycle at all. Curtains hung a little off the wall, with a hem clear of the floor, dry far better than ones pressed against cool plaster.

For houses shut through the rains, the choice is between synthetics that can stay up and natural fibres that should be cleaned and stored. We can plan either at the specification stage, and our take-down and storage service handles the second, returning the curtains cleaned and rehung before the house opens again.