Galleries: Four
Diamond Eating Nook Shades
Copyright 1996 - Terrell Sundermann
Every window in
this area was a different width (42.5" to 46"). The length of
each shade is 77" I adjusted the design by making the borders
different widths, leaving the inner fronts the same size. Because of the
way the windows were trimmed, the only installation option was Inside
Mount.
The view out these
windows is beautiful and I wanted to maintain as much as possible when
the shades were raised. Folding the shades on the half-block resulted in
a Stackage of only 7".
You can see a major
"goof" if you look at the far-left shade in the top
photograph. The bottom border is very long (17"). These are my
shades, installed in my breakfast nook. I made them upstairs in my
studio. Of course, they were finished the night before a party. When my
husband was installing the first one, I starting screaming. It was
pretty late at night and he thought I saw a burglar outside the window.
What I saw was even worse. The shade was 6" too short. I know these
shades were made back in 1996. But I had been making Roman shades for
over 10 years and had already turned out over 200. I thought that I was
beyond making mistakes. I ran upstairs and grabbed my sketch with the
window measurements. What I discovered was that I had misread my own
writing. Instead of 71", I had made the shades 77" long!
Now why hadn't I held one pieced front up to the window before making
the shade? Live and learn.
We went ahead and
installed all four shades. I pulled them up partially, to show off the
pattern and hide the fact that they were too short. I left them for 3
entire months before I had the energy to take them down and figure out
how to fix them. There was not enough room to add another row of
diamonds at the bottom. Luckily I had enough border fabric to replace
the bottom borders. Folding was now the issue. The bottom actually folds
twice (in very small folds), before the rest of the shade folds up on
the diamonds. It was major brain damage figuring out how to fold that
shade, but I did it.
Well
after all of that trouble, you would think that I would leave them up
forever. However, I am always seeing new patterns that I want to try.
And my home is where I experiment with new designs, and also my showroom
for potential customers. So these shades were replaced in 2004. They
were made the correct length the first time around.
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