Summer & Winter curtains

PasturesNew

The pattern is for ME, so it's inside. If people outside want to admire nice curtains they can go off and buy their own, I'm not paying for their enjoyment.

tori.k

I kinda do, less so in this house than the last one.
I have winter curtains for the patio doors into the conservatory and front door that comes down around March/April
The last house was a massive industrial conversion designed as a summer let so minimum insulation thick granite walls acted like a refrigerator 16c was the warmest we could get the open planned living area with the stove full blast, we added curtain poles to the ceiling beams in the lounge area, it looked ridiculously like curtains round a bed but did the job, but left you risking meeting Scott of the Antarctic in the Kitchen.
That house was evil summertime you didn't want to be anywhere else in the world but the winters were so miserable.

thriftwizard

I had the ideal mix at one point - detachable curtain liners! Same curtains all year, but thermal-lined in winter; just a matter of popping the liners' header-tape over the curtain hooks. Couldn't be easier...

I've never yet lived in a home with double glazing, though I have lived with (and loved) original shutters, which are nearly as efficient and only deployed when actually needed, i.e. in winter & bad storms. We currently live in an Edwardian house complete with elderly single glazing & original drafts; we have good curtains at most windows (from an enormous old old L. Ashley set, cut down to fit, lined but not interlined) and I've made lined Roman blinds for most of them too to stop the drafts in their tracks. The curtains that were here when we arrived, 27 years ago, were probably originally winter curtains, lined, in heavy mustard-coloured cotton velvet, floor to ceiling; I can't imagine anyone loving those in summer! (If at all...) But they were good when OH was working nights; no stray sunbeams could penetrate and they cut down any noise from the road too.

I work with old fabrics, and there were some enchanting, delightful, stylish & highly entertaining designs out there in times past; most curtains were handmade, many of the best painstakingly stitched by hand rather than machine, and sometimes I look at what's out there to buy now and despair!

phoebe1989seb

No double glazing here in this 400 year old stone cottage either - in fact we've only installed it (and not hideous plastic!) in one of the eight (all old/character) properties we've owned - so have thick, mainly interlined curtains at most windows, patterns facing inwards.

I recall my parents having Winter and Summer sets for the large 1920s north-facing bays in the house where I grew up, but it's not something we've ever done.

We have a mix of vintage velvet, newer velvet, heavy linen (all thermal lined) and interlined silk curtains that have moved house with us several times. Many were made by me - I've a background in fashion design so old/interesting fabrics are a passion of mine - but I've forced myself to stop looking at fabric websites/shops or I'd end up with sets for every season, not just Winter/Summer, lol :rotfl:

Edited to add - we've 50+ cushions throughout the house.....there's no way I'd be swapping those out, DH would kill me!

luxor4t

I remember mother in law changing her curtains/ cushions with the seasons. She seemed surprised and even slightly shocked that I didn't aspire to two sets.
However, she had a coal fire so by the Spring the curtains needed to come down..... so much dust! (despite regular shaking, brushing as vacuuming - a weekly chore back in the day).

Primrose

Yes, I do think curtains probably got much dirtier and dustier "in the old days" when coal fires were the norm. I remember the performance when the sweep came for the annual chimney clean and the supposed improvement when the Vac Sweep arrived. Furniture would be moved out of the room as much as possible and our piano had to be covered with a large dust sheet.


Thank goodness those days are over ! Central heating has made life so much easier and vastly reduced the amount of dusting and cleaning which needs to be done (not that I'm a martyr to that activity anyway!)

Primrose

PasturesNew wrote: »

The pattern is for ME, so it's inside. If people outside want to admire nice curtains they can go off and buy their own, I'm not paying for their enjoyment.

It always seemed bizarre to me that people would have the patterned side of curtains facing outwards where you couldn't enjoy them in the home. . Apart from anything else, it would be exposing them to fading and sun damage. I think our neighbour's argument was that the curtains would only be drawn at night so the sun wouldn't damage them. Of course it still would because the sun damage and fading would be worse on the exposed parts of the material and cause fading in streaks. Still, she always was a rather peculiar lady.


Incidentally we have moved house three times and when curtains have been made I've always had extra long hems included so that they can be let down to accommodate deeper windows if necessary. On more than one occasion this has allowed me to re-use curtains that would otherwise have had to be discarded.

suejb2

I change mine, when we change the clocks in October and March yet don’t know anyone else in my family who does

TheBanker

My mum (early 60s) still does this.

When I was a little boy I remember her and dad spending a weekend putting the winter or summer curtains up, then spending the next few weeks washing and drying the ones that had been taken down. Changing the curtains is something I remember, a bit like putting the Christmas decorations up on the first weekend of December.

When we had single glazed windows with wooden frames there was a clear benefit in having thicker curtains in the winter. Probably less so now.

Mum is surprised that I only have one set of curtains for each window. When I took my bedroom curtains down to be cleaned, I borrowed the set from the spare room (which was not in use). Mum asked me if I was in financial difficulty - clearly not able to comprehend someone not having spare curtains!

Big change for me is that mum used to wash the curtains in the machine and dry them on the line. Can't do that any more. I tried once and ruined them