It's always an exciting day in design when the long awaited custom draperies are installed for one of our fun interior projects! There is an air of anticipation, all the while holding your breath that all will go as planned, the draperies will be the perfect length, the trim will be as exceptional as you expected, and the overall completed product to die for.
Thursday, we me our installer on the job site to install $10k worth of fabulous silk striped draperies for a fabulous historic living room in Bucks County. I had designed a beautiful inverted pleat panel and taken a very special tassel from a Scalamadre trim to be added to each pleat. They looked exactly as I had envisioned! Wonderful! This design had taken the owner of the workroom to oversee just how they would be fabricated in order to get the desired result and I was excited to see the finished product
We had waited a good 5 weeks for custom painted barley twist rods in a bronze/silver finish to be manufactured.
Out come the rods.
Within a few moments, my installed quietly announced that the pole was too large for the inside loops that had been fashioned to support the panels to the wall.
What??!!
Needless to say, our client was even more disappointed than we were. Easter dinner with family and friends...long awaited draperies noticeably absent...despair for all.
Then, I started brainstorming. Surely I could purchase some substitute rods from somewhere close (Calico Corner, perhaps?!) , paint them and return before the installer was ready for them. After all, he had an entire other room to complete first! Much to the surprise of my project manager, we left in a hurry to try to replace the poles.
Success! I found the pole I needed at Calico Corner. Rifling through the floral paint supply, I found a good, full can of antique gold spray paint. I applied this color first to stained poles, then dry brushed them with antique silver and, VOILA!! Perfection achieved!!
The poles dried almost immediately, I packed the car and set off to show my magic! My project manager had her doubts that the client would be happy with my makeshift "custom rods", but I thought she would totally be impressed that we were able to overcome this quite serious obstacle and end up with a perfectly installed living room full of the most gorgeous silk drapery panels. Indeed, she was!
This is not the best photo to show my end result, but I will tell you that it was the perfect finish! Kind of a florentine finish, fit for $10K worth of draperies!! I was very pleased, and my client was thrilled that the installation had been saved. Sorry, I didn't get a good shot of the draperies. Taking fine photos of draperies is always a challenge, as we are always looking into the light of the window. 
So, take my word for it! The finished product was indeed, fit for a king. Every now and then, the winds blow in your favor.
1 comment:
Was the installer Sneelock, by chance?
Way to save the day! That was some quick thinking.
I really want to see those draperies, however...
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