Mosquito Nets for Goan & Portuguese Houses

Where the casement and shutters open inward, the simplest net is a fixed, slim frame set into the outer reveal or fitted behind the iron grille. You open the window and shutters as you always have, and the net sits quietly outside them. On upper floors where the outside can't be reached, a hinged net frame on the inside face of the wall swings open like a third leaf.

Oyster-shell windows deserve particular care. The panes are fragile and often irreplaceable, so we keep any net and its fixings well away from the shell lattice and never ask the casement to carry extra weight.

Charcoal or black mesh on a frame painted to match the window — white, green, blue, whatever the house uses — almost disappears from the street. Silver and white meshes catch the light and show. Keep frame sections as slim as practical so the proportions of the window still read as they were designed.

In a protected or listed house, talk to us early; we can plan nets that leave the outer face entirely untouched.

The tall pairs of doors from the salão out to the balcão, and from the back of the house to the yard, carry the cross-breeze that keeps an old house comfortable. Net doors hinged on the same side as the timber leaves open with them and fold flat to the wall. A soft self-closing hinge and a magnetic catch keep them shut behind you. Where floors are old and uneven, we scribe the bottom rail to the floor rather than adding a raised threshold.

Lime plaster over laterite is soft and powdery; carved frames should be left alone. We fix into sound masonry with fixings sized for it, set back from crumbling arrises, and plan every net so it could be taken down without leaving more than a filled screw hole. Restoration work comes first — if the walls are about to be re-plastered, the nets should follow, not precede, that work.