PERHAPS this paper will sound more like upholstery than carpentry,
but there is carpentry in it, and of the sort too that boy-carpenters
can do just as well as men-carpenters, and make changes in accordance
to the requirement of the windows for which they are planning, the
material at hand and their own taste. Always remember that mere rules
for such work are not enough, and that you must keep on hand a good
supply of _common sense_.
If you should look in the yellow-covered Farmer’s Almanac, hanging by
a loop in the chimney corner, you’d see, “About this time look out for
clearing weather;” that means clearing out and cleaning up and setting
the house in order inside, as well as old Mother Earth outside: what
our mothers call “spring cleaning.” Curtains come down to be washed
and put up again, and it’s a good time, too, to put up curtains where
there never have been any, for nothing makes a room look more homelike
and inviting than drapery of some sort or other, no matter how simple.
It used to be the fashion to tack curtains across the top of a
window-frame with a strip of stamped brass-work called a cornice, or
a bit of bright chintz, or turkey red, or something like a ruffle, to
cover the edges; but curtain poles, or rods and rings, are the fashion
now. They are prettier than the other things, and have one advantage
beside: the curtains can be pushed quite to one side when one wants
more air or light, and can be drawn close together again when more
perfect shade is needed.
Suppose you want to fix up your own room to look pretty and not
cost very much. I found it good fun to make something useful out of
something other people had discarded as useless. I’ll tell you how
I made my room look cosey, and what I did it with. It had just one
window, a half-dormer as they call it, and looked to the west, out over
the hills; but the sun shone in very bright and hot in the afternoon,
and I had to have a dark shade which I fitted myself from one that
had belonged to a larger window. It kept the sun out, but it was not
pretty, and I was determined to have some draperies. Of course I
could not make curtains, for a boy is more handy with a hammer than a
needle; but when mother found what I was up to, she said she’d give me
the curtains if I could do all the rest. They were very simple, just
cream-colored Nottingham lace, and cost $1.00. They might have been
made of unbleached strainer cloth at six cents a yard, with a ruffle,
if this had been for your mother or sister who didn’t mind sewing; but
it is the pole I mean to tell you about.
I’m sure to look at it you would never guess what that pole was, or
where I got it.
Up in the attic, in one corner, I found an old United States map, so
old, so out of date that as a map it had been useless for years and
years, for it was printed when the State of Ohio was “way out West.”
The map used to hang in grandfather’s library half a century ago. It
had black rollers with acorn knobs on the ends. I thought right away
that the smooth slender pole would be just the thing for a curtain pole
if I could get the map off without splitting the roller which was of
soft pine stained black. A sharp knife and a little care did it. One
of the knobs was easily loosened. Then I measured carefully over my
window and cut the pole the right length and fitted the knobs smoothly
into place. A little sandpaper and a coat of varnish made my stained
pine roller look like ebony. But what was I to do for curtain rings!
The pole was too slender for the heavy wooden rings sold by the dozen
at the upholsterer’s; besides I did not want to spend any money. Back
to the attic I went and rummaged in what we call the “trumpery box,”
full of the odds and ends that accumulate in an old house. Among a lot
of brass knobs and hooks and hinges, I came across a lot of dingy metal
rings tied together with a bit of stout string. The rings were about
an inch and a half across; I could not tell what the rings were made
of, they were so black, but I thought a good washing would bring out
the complexion, so I put the rings into a bath of ammonia and soda,
which soon showed that under the black coating was something very much
like brass. A stiff brush and a little fine pummice gave me a dozen
glittering rings, six for each curtain. I divided the curtains evenly;
with strong thread fastened the rings in place on the upper edge of
each curtain and slipped them on to the pole. Two inches from the ends
of the pole I screwed the little rings through which the cord had
passed when the map was hung. A little hook at each end of the upper
window frame served to hang my pole, which of course was very light,
but heavy enough for muslin or lace. In the same “trumpery box” I found
two brass knobs (door knobs, I guess they were). I screwed one of these
each side of the window and looped back my curtains. There was my
window, as new-fashioned or as old-fashioned as you choose to call it,
but very pretty and inexpensive.
There are few old houses in the country that would not give at least
as much to work with as I had. The old rollers on old-fashioned paper
shades, such as you will find in lots of up-country attics, would make
just as good poles stained and varnished. Even the acorn caps are not
essential, for many of the most fashionable _portieres_ and curtain
poles, nowadays, especially those of bamboo, have no caps at all on
the ends: only then you put a screw in at right angles, to keep the end
ring from coming off.
That was the first curtain pole that I put up. The next room I tried
my hand on had a bay with three windows, and was harder to manage, but
it did not cost very much after all. I saw an advertisement of an odd
lot of curtain poles with rings and brackets complete for seventy-five
cents apiece. Since then I have seen them advertised for sixty cents,
which is cheaper than you can get the wood and turn them for yourself.
I found that two poles would do for the three windows, for the side
windows were narrow, and half a pole was enough for each. I only wanted
two ends instead of the four that belonged with the poles, so a trifle
was allowed, enough to give me some extra rings and two extra brackets.
The first thing to do was to get the angle of the bay: this I did with
some mathematical instruments, but you might not have those handy, and
this way will give it near enough. Take a good-sized piece of stiff
paper (stout wrapping paper will do), lay a straight edge on the floor
against the mop-board of the middle window, and fold the end of the
paper to exactly fit the side mop-board, something like this. Then fold
the straight edges together and you will have the angle shown in the
dotted line.
Measure length of middle and side windows and cut the poles at the
angle shown by the folded paper: a few brads will secure the slanting
ends when they are neatly put together.
[Illustration]
The brackets that come with these cheap poles are iron spikes bent up
at one end. Two are used for each pole; they are driven into the wall
about four or five inches from the ends of the poles, and the poles
rest on the brackets; of course the joined corners count as ends, and
are supported in the same way. Some prefer to put ring-headed screws
into the poles and slip the rings over the ends of the spikes; and
more expensive poles have brass “cup brackets” which of course are
ornamental, but also expensive.
The wooden rings have ring screws on which to fasten the curtains.
The number used is a matter of taste and depends upon the stuff the
curtains are made of, the size of the folds you want, and the number of
rings you have. Five or six do very well for a yard-wide curtain. Be
sure and divide evenly; put one ring at each upper corner and the rest
as they come; a few stitches with coarse thread will secure them, or
better still, an inch of tape slipped through the ring and fastened by
the doubled ends on to the edge of the cloth. You can buy curtain hooks
if you like, and have them sewed on. These are something like big dress
hooks: the advantage is, that when you want to take curtains down you
just unhook them from the rings without taking the poles down at all.
I know a boy who made a pretty pair of curtain-poles out of two
straight, slender beech saplings; he twisted rings out of stout wire
and wound them with crossway strips of dark cloth. For muslin curtains,
loops of bright ribbons instead of rings would be prettier still on
such rustic poles.
Would you like to know what curtains went on to my sixty-cent poles?
They are very “æsthetic” in color, but are just soft Canton flannel
at a shilling a yard. The centre of olive, the sides dark crimson with
bands between of darker olive. These are looped away on either side
with bands made of the flannel and underneath are full curtains of
six-cent scrim, (unbleached).
But curtain-making belongs to the girls, so having told you how to make
the poles and put them up, I will leave the rest to them.