5 Suggestions For Picking Out Suitable Fabrics For Your Home
1. Fabrics are like paintings in that they make a strong statement about the inhabitants of a home. They are an important ingredient in the hierarchy of decoration as in furniture, floor coverings, wall coverings, accessories. Since they can combine color, pattern, and texture, they must be carefully considered in every room scheme. Their practical considerations must be weighed too. Depending on their weave and content, fabrics can help control both natural light and air. A sheer fabric can admit pleasant breezes; a heavy one can keep out unwanted cold.
Other practical considerations center around such questions as:
* Is there a label or trade-mark on the fabric? * If so does the label tell how the fabric can be cleaned? * Will it shrink if washed? * Is it crease resistant, permanent press, fade resistant, stain resistant? * What types of stains will it resist?
All these and other questions about performance must be answered to your satisfaction before you buy a fabric, because fabric function is important. A fabric is likely to be in your home for a long time.
2. Deciding on a suitable fabric for a given element of your decorating plan takes a lot of thought and study. Before you get into the creative part dealing with color, pattern, and texture, you must think about where the particular fabric is to go, how much wear, if any, it will get in that location, its proximity to strong sunlight, whether the room or house is damp or humid. For example, in humid climates certain fabrics absorb considerable amounts of moisture and a drapery height measured when the fabric is dry will turn out wrong when the drapery, moisture sogged, laps over the floor. You must know both your fabric and the area where it is to go.
3. When it comes to choosing a fabric on the basis of aesthetic appeal, it may take a lot of searching and shopping to find the right one to fit the decorating scheme you have in mind. However, the scheme must come before the search, of course, and this leads to the questions: What goes with what, what colors and patterns and textures go with what period styles? Choice really boils down in great measure to personal preference. After all, the market abounds in fabrics in every range. The choice is so broad that you are bound to find something that is correct for the over-all style you have selected and that you really like.
4. For a traditional scheme, you can find documentary fabrics with colors and patterns that are authentic to a given period. Certain fabric manufactures specialize in documentaries. There might be a Williamsburg collection that would have exact copies of eighteenth-century fabrics used in that town, or there might be a French country collection, an Early American collection, or a Victorian collection. From these, you can choose with absolute certainty of being correct. For example, if you are doing an eighteenth-century English room, you find that many tones of green were popular at that time and that classic motifs were used such as flutings, acanthus leaves, delicate garlands, architectural scenes. Armed with these ideas, you can look more knowledgeably. Other examples might be a flower-patterned chintz for a late Victorian room, a toile for a French country room, or a paisley print for an American Federal room.
5. Remember, too, that there are formal and informal kinds of fabrics. Texture also comes into play here. A smooth silk, a gleaming satin are for the most formal areas of the home. A nubby tweed, loose woven linen, or wool are for the informal living areas. Pattern enters into this matter. An ornate brocade is formal, a plaid is informal. Your eye and your touch will help guide you here. Texture becomes especially important when choosing fabrics for contemporary decor. A handsome contemporary scheme can be built around primary colors against white, in an interplay of many different textural weaves for the fabrics used in drapery, upholstery, and bedspreads.
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