Yesterday I put up all the grasscloth wallpaper in the bedroom, but I haven’t quite finished the wallpaper in the foyer yet. I need another day for that. In the meantime, I’m looking forward to my next project, which is the curtains. I thought I might do the headboard next, but for some reason the fabric is still not here (even though I paid for expedited processing/shipping so it would be here last Friday). No problem. At least I have all my curtain fabrics, so I’ll move on to the fabrics next.
The fabric I purchased for the curtains is a beautiful teal velvet. But the interesting thing about velvet is that you can achieve two very different looks from one fabric, depending on how you hang the fabric. Because velvet has a pile, meaning the fibers of the fabric lie in one direction, this means it looks different depending on the direction you look at it. This means that I can achieve two really different looks with this fabric depending on which direction I sew the fabric.
I didn’t have time to attach the curtain rods yet, so I just draped the fabric over my ladder to get an idea of ​​what the curtains would look like. This is what the fabric looks like with the velvet pile facing upwards. You can see how hanging the fabric with the pile facing up gives the fabric a deep, dark and rich look. In this direction the curtains would be slightly darker than the walls.
And this is what the fabric looks like with the pile facing downwards. This direction makes the curtains slightly lighter than the walls.
Here’s a close-up of the two options side by side.
I went back to the bedroom entrance to see if the difference between the two options was as noticeable as when I was standing near the fabric. Here it is seen from a distance, with the pile increasing and the fabric appearing darker.
And here’s a view from a distance: the pile becomes smaller and the fabric appears lighter.
And here’s a comparison of the two options from afar…
In my mockup of the room you can see that I went with the darker option…
Just looking at the looks of the two, I personally prefer the darker option, but the decision isn’t quite as easy as deciding which one looks better. There are other factors that give me pause. The main factor is that hanging velvet with the pile facing up will almost certainly cause it to collect dust easily. I’m trying to decide whether this will actually be a problem or not. Of course, my vacuum cleaner has an upholstery attachment and it would only take a few minutes to vacuum the curtains with it if necessary. All of my curtains, even the non-velvet ones, need to be vacuumed regularly, especially when I’m working on large projects and creating a lot of dust in the house. Hopefully the dust buildup on that side of the house is almost over, so it may not be a problem under normal living conditions.
But I really think they’ll look a lot richer and prettier if they’re darker, right? I also have to keep in mind that the armchair will be lighter than the walls. So if the curtains look lighter it may look like I tried to match them to the armchair and if they are even slightly “off” I think the difference will be much more noticeable than if I make the curtains so they appear darker and it looks like a deliberate decision NOT to match them to the armchair.
