CurtainsMade4U - Chinoiserie Collection

I am very happy to welcome CurtainsMade4U as a Chinoiserie Chic Sponsor. This new sister division to Calico Corners has a wonderful selection of fabrics, great prices, and the reputation and quality of Calico Corners. You won't believe how fun their website is. It's a breeze to browse by color, fabric, or collection - and they have an entire collection devoted to Chinoiserie.

Choose your fabric and style, and voila, the configurator shows you a photo of exactly what the curtains will look like. These are all examples I created just now from their Chinoiserie collection. Then order free fabric samples, measure your windows, place your order online, and in 3 - 4 weeks you will have fabulous custom curtains shipped to your door. CurtainsMade4U offers very high quality custom curtains at excellent prices, made in the USA, with free samples and free shipping. Please enjoy my interview with Julie Morris, Director of Custom Products and Programs, and then go explore being your own curtain designer at CurtainsMade4U.

Q - What was the idea for the creation of CurtainsMade4U? 

We wanted to make our high quality, custom products available to a broader market via the web appealing to consumers who like to do their shopping from their laptop, on their own schedule, and who want their home to be beautiful. We also wanted to reach out to “custom newbies” and show them how easy it is to design their own affordable, beautiful and unique curtains.

Q -  What is unique about CurtainsMade4U? 

There are four things that really make us unique:

§  The fun, fresh vibe of our website.

§  The flexibility of being able to begin your curtain creation process with either the curtain style or the fabric.

§  Our easy-to-use product configurator with additional information just a click away.

§  And our fashion-forward fabric selection that can be searched by color, fabric type, lifestyle or collection.

You won’t find anyone else offering all these things—and don’t forget our high quality construction, free swatches and free shipping!

Q - When did it launch? 

We launched August 31, 2011.

Q - Why a Chinoiserie Collection?

Chinoiserie is one of eight décor lifestyles we chose to feature for the launch of CurtainsMade4U. Chinoiserie style is both au courant and timeless—and one of my personal favorites.  It can be sophisticated and playful at the same time. You can decorate an entire home or room with a Chinoiserie approach or mix it with other styles to add a twist to traditional, eclectic or contemporary decor.  It works in just about any setting.  So we're offering our customers some beautiful Chinoiserie options for their custom curtains.  Our fabrics range from more intricate classic patterns to more bold and bright Chinoiserie prints—all of which will add dramatic style to a room.

Q - Plans for the future of CurtainsMade4U? More Chinoiserie? 

Visitors and customers are already asking for additional products. Our long-term expansion plans include more “Made4U” websites where we will offer valances, shades, pillows, bedding and other custom products.  Expansion specifically for CurtainsMade4U will include Cabaña Curtains for Spring/Summer 2012 and our fabric assortment will continue to evolve and expand.  Our goal is to have the best selection at the best prices for the quality we offer.

Chinoiserie is definitely a category that I would like to expand upon. That being said, it is not all that easy to find fabulous Chinoiserie fabrics so when we see something special, we buy it.  Our Chinoiserie fabrics have been purchased one-by-one.

CurtainsMade4U - Silk

Alessandra Branca

When choosing curtains for the Chinoiserie home, there are two perfect categories of choices. The first is fabrics with Chinoiserie motifs like Chinoiserie toiles with their whimsical depiction of pagodas, parasols, monkeys, elephants, peacocks, cherry blossoms, trees, birds, bamboo, and the like. The Chinoiserie Collection of CurtainsMade4U has many wonderful examples. These patterned fabrics tend to work best in rooms that have painted walls or monochromatic walls where the curtains can become a real focal point.

Wallpaper is a huge trend today, and if you are lucky enough to have a room papered in a Chinoiserie wallpaper, my favorite choice for curtains is silks. Whether dupioni or taffeta, solid or striped, choose a color from your Chinoiserie wallpaper for your silk window treatments and you will have a very elegant room. The room above by Alessandra Branca is a great example with its Fromental Chinoiserie wallpaper and silk taffeta curtains. Check out CurtainsMade4U's beautiful collection of silks below and here.

Navy Greek Key Trim - High/Low

House Beautiful

 I am crazy about using navy Greek key to trim curtains. Black or gray is also gorgeous. The best tip is that it can be easily sewn on by you or your dry cleaners to inexpensive ready made curtains to make them look incredibly expensive. One of my favorite tricks is the Ikea Aina in linen for $49.99 available in white, natural, gray, and pink. I used these in pink and trimmed them in navy Greek key for a client and they came out gorgeous - a very high end look. Keep your eyes open for Greek key trim on sale too - I just bought a zillion yards of Greek key trim at my local Jo- Ann's for $1.5O a yard. Tomorrow I will do a post on sourcing Greek key trim.

House Beautiful

Oversized Greek key trim

On cornice and curtains

Oversized fretwork on green

Grant K. Gibson - on camel

Ikea Aina

Ikea Aina

Ikea - Aina

Ikea - Aina

High end inspiration photo to give you the idea of pink linen with Greek key

The Chinoiserie Dining Room

Brannan Geary - Southern Living

 

This is a lovely classic dining room in a New Orleans home. The hand painted mural on the four walls combines palms and tropical plants in muted greens and browns. The ruby Cavalier King Charles Spaniel is a perfect match for the bronze tones in the room like the dramatic silk curtains. 

Autumn and Chinoiserie - Greek Key Trim DIY

M&J Trimming - Greek Key in Orange/Cream

Add autumn spice to your home this fall with Greek key trim in orange. These are two favorites. Use it to trim pillows or ready made curtains for an easy DIY. And don't limit your choices to white or ivory curtains - these cotton velvets in light turquoise, gray, and lilac from Ikea would be beautiful. Other great ideas include using it to trim a lampshade, a roman shade, a stair runner, or a piece of furniture.

M&J Trimming - Greek Key in Brown/Ginger

Add orange Greek key trim to pillows

Or curtains

Ikea Sanela in Light Turquoise

Ikea Sanela in Gray

Ikea Sanela in Lilac

More ideas -

Chinoiserie Gone Wrong

Miles Redd

This is the worst example of Chinoiserie Gone Wrong to date. I challenge anyone to offer a reasoned explanation for this classic hand painted silk Chinoiserie Fromental wallpaper with -

*This rug that does not belong anywhere but a Las Vegas casino
*His signature overdone silk ruffled curtains that I have never understood in a blue color from out in left field
*The dinky chandelier hung too high with dated itsy bitsy shades - I think he was trying to copy one of Alessandra Branca's signature touches (red chandelier shades) and missed
*That ugly clunky dining table with white columns - why white?
*A piece of modern art that looks like some sort of explosion
*A centerpiece of crystals that is so wrong
*Jarring black and white abstract chevron chairs that were so 15 minutes of fame
*The pedestals for the obelisks look like formica lecterns
*The sideboard looks like an office desk

If this were my dining room I would take that obelisk and impale myself on it. This absolutely falls under the category of "I can do whatever I want because I'm Miles Redd." Words cannot begin to describe my dislike for this room. It is mismatched, tacky, and downright ugly. As my mother would say, it was beaten with an ugly stick.

And you can be sure this room, featured in Architectural Digest, cost an absolute fortune. Here is the description from Architectural Digest:

"The most intense arena is the dining room. With its pale-silver wallpaper painted with exotic foliage, neo-Cubist sisal, peacock-blue taffeta curtains sparked by a John Fowler design, and chairs clad in a black-and-white velvet whose wavy motif vibrates like Op Art, it’s a dynamic space for making a grand sartorial impression. 'The great thing about Houston is that people come all decked out,' Redd notes. 'It’s a lot of stylish ladies in stunning clothes, and that works perfectly with the room.' "

"This Houston mansion’s dining room is lined with a Fromental silk wall covering; a Brunschwig & Fils silk taffeta was used for the curtains, the Oscar de la Renta Home for Century Furniture chairs are upholstered in a Turkish velvet, and Agustin Hurtado custom painted the Patterson Flynn Martin sisal."

More money than taste.

Ok, I'm game. Love it? Hate it? This should be interesting. I'm just waiting for, "As long as they love it, that's all that matters." Well you don't need to pay someone a fortune for a room that looks like it was the result of a bad acid trip.

Chinoiserie Shower Curtains

Beautiful ready made shower curtains are hard to find and Chinoiserie ones are even rarer. These two are wonderful and both are on sale. Above is West Lake from Blissliving Home and below is Audrey from Pottery Barn. Both will add drama to a neutral bathroom or will distract the eye in older bathrooms with dated colors.

Ikat at CurtainsMade4U

Veranda

Love the idea of mixing ikat and Chinoiserie? Check out my posts here, here and here for inspiration. CurtainsMade4U has a wonderful selection of ikat fabrics in their Global Collection. Order free fabric samples online, then design your curtains online in three easy steps - fabric, style, dimensions, and your gorgeous custom curtains will arrive at your door in 3 - 4 weeks with free shipping and excellent prices.