Cooper’s Pine Cone pattern is at home in rustic, cottage-style, and Arts & Crafts houses.

My days are often spent on the telephone, guiding clients who I know are standing near a window, atop a ladder (or kitchen chair) with a clacking tape measure in hand. As a designer and merchant of period-inspired lace curtains, I can offer them—and you—help in selecting appropriate window treatments. From 20 years of advice:

Which Pattern?

Many people mistakenly assume that lace curtains are Victorian. Not true: Lace was used at the windows long before Queen Victoria ascended the throne, and lace curtains are still common today, especially in the United Kingdom and Europe.

Although machine-made lace wasn’t available until after the mid-19th century, earlier historical patterns (previously hand-woven) are being reproduced today, suitable for Colonial, Federal, and Greek Revival homes. Down the timeline, Arts & Crafts-era, Art Deco, Elizabethan, and Colonial Revival patterns are being made. Because interior styles evolved, you can choose to coordinate the lace pattern with your furnishings rather than the house.

Shades of Lace

Most lace curtains today are finished in white, natural white (a.k.a. ivory), or ecru. White is bleached, like a new cotton T-shirt. Natural white is unbleached; I tell clients that it looks white until you place it side-by-side with bleached white. Ecru is a darker, almost tan color. All of these, as long as they are cotton, easily can be tea-stained or dyed to a darker shade. Consider that some people find ecru too “yellowy” against white-painted woodwork, while others find white too stark against dark trim.

Which Weave?

Most of your choices have been woven on Madras or Nottingham looms. Richly textured Madras lace is made by an appliqué process wherein a 100-percent cotton scrim is woven, and then the loom passes over it and a pattern is affixed. Finally, the panel is sheared, creating a crisp design. Nottingham is a type of machine-woven lace developed in the 1840s; it’s available in several point sizes that determine the fineness or coarseness of the pattern. Nottingham lace is produced in cotton/polyester blends ranging from 95-percent cotton to all polyester.

Shirred lace panels hung below transom windows lend privacy while admitting plenty of light. (Photo: Carolyn Bates)

Length and Width

There’s no exact formula; still, conventions exist that differ according to era. For Federal, Greek Revival, romantic (i.e., early to mid) Victorian, and some Colonial Revival styles, window treatments were “fuller” and more gathered. Typically, the ratio of lace was 1½ to two times the width of the window opening—say, 54″ to 72″ of lace (flat width) for a 36″-wide window. Lace panels often hung well below the windowsill, sometimes even pooling onto the floor.

For bungalows and most Colonial Revival houses, and for the styles of the 20th century—Craftsman, Deco, mid-century modern—window treatments were hung “flatter” with less gathering. The cloth to window ratio is not more than 1½ times; for many patterns, the preference is one to 1¼ times, or 36″ to 45″ of lace for a 36″ window. By now curtains were shorter, stopping at or near the windowsill or apron.  I offer custom shortening, as do some other vendors; the panels can be shortened from the top to preserve an ornamental bottom border.

Cleaning and Care

Unless you have some special (dirty or dusty) circumstance, once a year is more than enough. In the interim, you might shake the curtains out or gently vacuum them (using the soft brush attachment). Manufacturers recommend dry-cleaning, although my clients have found that washing their panels in cold water with a mild detergent, by hand or on the machine’s delicate cycle, works well. High-efficiency washers will deliver the clean curtains to you barely damp. Never put cotton lace curtains in the dryer! Simply hang them up, barely damp, back on their rods. Don’t hang lace by clothespins, and don’t drape it over a clothesline, because, as the rope sags, the lace may become distorted. Straighten them while they are hanging by lightly spritzing them with water, then gently tugging and smoothing the fabric by hand. Cotton lace will shrink slightly after washing. (Damp-ironing may mitigate shrinkage.) You can lower the rod or hang the curtain through the header hem instead of the lower rod pocket.

In a Victorian vignette, lace panels hang to the floor, tied back over a fancy roller shade. (Photo: Paul Rocheleau)

Hanging Curtains

The simplest way to hang a lace curtain is with an adjustable spring-tension rod, readily available at hardware stores. To mount the curtains on the face of the woodwork, you can find inside- or outside-mount café rods in a variety of finishes. Sash rods that fit close to the glass are preferred for door and sidelight curtains, where you might want a bottom rod pocket sewn into the curtains.

Sources

Cooper’s Cottage Lace: Author Dan Cooper founded the company to extend the offerings available in cotton Madras lace. Besides his own adaptations, he’s invited some of today’s best revival artists to interpret Aesthetic and Arts & Crafts movement, Prairie School, Art Deco, neoclassical, and Colonial Revival designs. His 16 (and counting) patterns are 100-percent  cotton Madras lace woven in Scotland, available as curtain panels (in many sizes and widths), valances, and table scarves.

Bradbury & Bradbury: Lace curtains (Grecian, Eastlake, Regency, Art Deco) designed by Bradbury & Bradbury Art Wallpapers president Steve Bauer and produced by Cooper complement some of the wallpaper patterns.

J.R. Burrows & Co.: Nottingham Victorian lace curtains (8-, 10-, and 14-point) and Madras muslin curtains in a unique range from Renaissance Revival style to designs by C.F.A. Voysey and Candace Wheeler.

London Lace: Nottingham lace and cotton Madras lace from Scotland in historical and contemporary patterns.

Heritage Lace: Vintage-look patterns among many styles; 100-percent polyester, made in America.

The formal foyer, somewhat unusual for a Craftsman house, showcases stained and shellacked woodwork of Douglas fir. The library table and large Morris chair are Grand Rapids’ Lifetime Furniture antiques.

One word comes to mind to describe the approach taken by Carol Polanskey and Martin Ratliff for their restoration: scientific. Beginning in 1992, these committed homeowners used their analytical experience—both are rocket scientists—to take restoration to a higher level, researching the era and looking for evidence on site. The result is a house that glows.

Passersby inevitably slow down to take notice of the 1909 chalet–bungalow.  Its Craftsman-era piers of arroyo stone and clinker brick fit right in with other houses in Pasadena’s Bungalow Heaven Landmark District. But the exterior has “more action” than a typical bungalow, with steep gables and dormers, and stickwork that recalls late 19th-century Swiss chalets. Details are all the more evident with the polychrome paint scheme. (Despite many friendly knocks on the door, the colors chosen are a secret so that the house remains unique.)

A transitional nature is apparent inside, too, where entry is through a relatively large and formal foyer. The superb woodwork found throughout the house starts here, with a wainscot, staircase, built-in bench, and colonnade of stained and shellacked Douglas fir.

Living and dining rooms have a beautiful interplay of warm colors, authentic period furnishings, and original woodwork. A bold motif repeats: the peaked lintel over windows outside also frames doorways on the interior. Inside, the header is pierced by arrow-top stile extensions that look like through tenons.

The woodwork, which could be overbearing with white walls, has become the house’s strongest asset, owing to the owners’ paint-color choices and—they were amazed to discover—their embrace of wallpaper. Carol admits to having disliked fussy, papered walls. But, during an early restoration phase they dubbed “the white abatement program,” they say the house told them it had to have wallpaper. When they moved in, the interior was cold and uninviting and, scientists that they are, they had an explanation: Human eyes adjust to the brightest thing in the space; if that happens to be a white wall, the woodwork will look featureless and dull. Moody colors complement the dark wood trim, showcasing the wood’s grain and sheen and bringing it depth. The room becomes more cheerful.

Prepping for a bedroom paint job, the couple was surprised to find distinct layers of wallpaper on the walls, each paper from a different era. Martin and Carol slowed down to take note of individual layers, to experiment with various removal techniques, and to carefully save samples. It was the living room, however, that “really got the restoration juices flowing,” says Carol. This room had seven layers, one a leaf pattern that captured their fancy. They halted the project, meticulously photographed the paper on the wall before peeling it off, and eventually plan to have the pattern reproduced for use in another room. They went through a similar process in the dining room and first-floor office near the kitchen. “We’ve become wallpaper archaeologists,” Carol laughs, as she points out foam-core boards with vacuum-pressed samples attached. “We realize that this house has a true relationship with wallpaper.”

The first-floor office features a built-in, drop-front writing desk, below which is a twin hideaway bed.

Samples pulled from the upstairs bedroom ultimately influenced the couple’s wallpaper choices. Because their house is transitional, they wanted patterns with finer lines and subtle texture, not overtly American Arts & Crafts styles or 1920s geometrics. They selected hand-printed, abstract-floral reproduction papers by specialty companies, which required expert installation. Anticipating more discoveries, Carol notes that they’ve yet to strip the wallpaper in several rooms upstairs.

Precise and logical restoration came into play elsewhere, too. During the design of the new shade structure adjacent to the rear of the house, the couple agonized over how to be sure its stone piers would look authentic. On neighborhood walks, they scrutinized porches, even measuring grout thickness and depth, the clinker-to-rock ratio, how the clinker bricks were massed, and the distribution and size of the rocks. Then, using an Excel spreadsheet to chart their findings, they discovered that old masonry shows a wide distribution of color and size of rocks, while new masonry is more uniform. The craft of masonry was evident when the couple deduced that the grout tended to be about “two knuckles deep” and the distance between the rocks was always the width of a finger. Yet a rooftop feature of the new structure is hardly original: “Rocket scientists love solar panels!” Martin jokes.

The refrigerator cabinet, incorporating a pantry, looks like a large armoire. Above the fridge are pantry pullout units that make deep, high storage accessible.

If you owned a premier company specializing in period-inspired cabinets, what would your kitchen look like? How about this: “A design aesthetic inspired by the classical vocabulary of ancient Roman architecture—more specifically, by the Swedish neoclassical movement —but with an updated sensibility.” The kitchen belongs to Crown Point Cabinetry founder Brian Stowell and his wife, Becky. Quoted above is the company’s product designer, Fred Puksta, who explains that the Stowell kitchen became a vehicle for development of the company’s patented new channel stock face frame.

The tall, freestanding wine cabinet features a leaded-glass door and Crown Point’s arched wine nooks.

“While typical face frames in the industry are rectangular in cross-section, with a flat face,” Stowell explains, “Fred introduced a new face-frame element with a cross-section in the shape of a C—channel stock.” This innovation became a foundational element for several new offerings from the company, including their Neoclassical, Prairie, and Classical Metropolitan lines.

The house in Quechee, Vermont, is a Greek Revival-style Cape design/build from Connor Homes. But the architectural kitchen was designed by Puksta. “I wanted the cabinetry to mimic a cityscape that might be found in Rome, Florence, or Venice,” says Puksta. “So I varied the heights and depths of the cabinets and used crown moldings, pediments, and arches. Different colors and finishes enhance the composition of individual ‘buildings’ in the landscape.”

Three-dimensional cabinet frame members produce decorative parallel lines that intersect at the corners to form squares. In the base cabinets, this channel frame stock concludes at the floor in a delicately tapered leg. The channel-stock corner posts present each cabinet as a piece of unfitted furniture, recalling old European kitchens.

The chestnut island has illuminated, open-end niches for display.

The Stowells (who share the house with 13-year-old twins) prefer an uncluttered appearance, which suggested the garages for counter appliances. At the same time, open cabinets display dishware and tone down the formality of the space Cabinet finishes are custom-blended paint colors (a blue-green and a creamy yellow) with a conversion varnish finish that was glazed and baked.

The island was designed as a piece of antique furniture: it’s reclaimed wormy chestnut resawn from old beams. A countertop of Cambrian granite was “antiqued” to a semi-porous matte finish that Puksta says has nearly the feel of leather. Flooring is old-growth, longleaf heart pine, finished with Carlisle’s “gingerbread” stain and four coats of high-resin tung oil. “Board widths are 7″, 9″, 11″, even 13″,” marvels Brian Stowell.

The big keeping room was added to the house in the mid-1700s. Antique furnishings include an early 19th-century tall-case clock of butternut, made in Massachusetts, and a Dan Patch wagon serving as a coffee table.

The year 1732 saw the birth of George Washington on his family’s estate in Virginia. As it happens, it was a significant year, too, for a Mrs. Nevins of Nova Scotia, an Irish widow whose husband had recently been lost at sea. In 1732 she moved to the rural hamlet of West Dunstable, Massachusetts, where she built a simple home for herself and three young sons. It was an unpretentious dwelling made of wide pine boards and chestnut planks, one big room and a loft to serve as the bedroom, and a small barn attached.

Subsequent owners in the 1750s added a long, light-filled keeping room and kitchen along the eastern side of the house, centered on a fireplace. Prosperity in the 1780s saw the addition of a formal parlor, with a hand-carved mantel in the classical Federal style. Then . . . nothing more changed for two centuries. No central heat, no indoor plumbing, no electricity were added. By the middle of the 20th century, the old house had been abandoned as uninhabitable, and the eyesore was slated for demolition.

It was 1965 when Judy and Teddy Larter found the property for sale while looking through the local want ads. It was just what they sought—an original house of the colonial era that had not been altered.

The house had to be moved out of the way of impending development. The Larter family had rural property here in western Massachusetts: 60 acres of pasture and forest, where time moved slowly. So they had the old house dismantled, its roof removed and all the beams numbered, and trucked to its new home. It would be set on a new fieldstone foundation laid in the traditional fashion, without cement. Underneath was a dugout stone cellar. In the for mer attached barn, they built a new kitchen and bathroom; the loft became two bedrooms and another bath. Plumbing and electricity went in, but the original footprint of the house and its structure remained unaltered.

Judy Larter with Simba, a Portuguese Water Dog who loves to hike in the woods.

The couple spent years accumulating furniture sympathetic to the house. Finds from local antiques stores mingle with heirlooms and hand-me-downs, like a Steiff teddy bear that belonged to Judy’s father, and the Queen Anne highboy from her Aunt Louise (who’d cut off the legs with a saw so she could see into the top drawer). Judy found a large, early 19th-century Shaker spinning wheel that she has put to good use; she shears the ewe’s wool each spring and spins yarn for sweaters. Rooms boast paintings by New England artists, brass bed warmers still used in the cold winters, and a collection of antique children’s toys.

A treasure of the house was the original woodwork, never painted, rich with patina. The Larters cleaned it with linseed oil and turpentine. The house had no insulation, and none was added: “At least radon gas isn’t an issue,” Judy jokes. The old glass in multi-paned windows was cleaned and glazing renewed; broken panes were replaced with salvaged glass. Fireplaces were reopened and cleaned as needed. The keeping room’s huge hearth and beehive oven are pressed into service every Thanksgiving to cook the holiday turkey on a hand-operated spit. It’s a day-long process, as it was in colonial times; the family gathers around the fire, visiting and even spinning wool.

Living in this house affected Judy more than she would have predicted. She has been involved in her community’s preservation of historic structures and natural resources, serving on planning boards and cemetery commissions and working with the National River Watershed Association. Simple lessons from the house are a legacy she hopes to pass on.

Hardwood parquet flooring is the standard for high-style and urban Victorian houses. Photo by Edward Addeo.

As always, more ideas come to us from history than from a showroom. Look at the flooring choices here—not only to see the variety of conventions, materials, and finishes available, but also to confirm the decorating importance of the floor.

Some types, such as parquet borders and wide pine, are closely associated with an era. Others are more generic (hardwood tongue-and-groove), or easily adapted to an inspired new use.

Tile

Take, for example, English geometric and encaustic tiles. These unique, lovely, and practical tiles reappeared during the 1980s Victorian Revival. Encaustics are a medieval-period tile whose manufacture was rediscovered in England during the 19th-century art movements.

Besides their use in restoration today—as for Victorian brownstone entries and old city-library floors—geometrics and encaustics can be used, in an endless number of patterns, for newer houses. They’re especially handsome when paired with English Tudor or Arts & Crafts influences.

Painted Floors

Painted wood floors can be country-style or quite formal, as with this faux-marble treatment in the entry hall of the Rensselaer Nicoll House.

Painted floors have long been associated with early American and country houses. Their strong geometric and faux-marble effects, though, are sophisticated enough for, say, 20th-century Colonial Revival hallways.

Floors painted with trompe l’oeil effects date to colonial days but have become popular in personalized new interiors.

Wood Flooring

Wood flooring by itself offers hundreds of options, given different species of wood, reclaimed and new stock, varying widths and jointing options, inlays and parquetry, and finish types. Though you won’t find all such options at the Home Depot, suppliers are not hard to locate.

Finishing Touches Only a face-nailed, wide-plank pine floor, without gloss, looks right in a ca. 1690 bedroom. If you are refinishing or installing a period floor, don’t overlook the importance of final finish, whether it be penetrating oil or surface varnish, high gloss, low sheen, or flat. Flooring conveys character. Wood floors are the standard for public rooms and more formal private ones, as wood suggests tradition, durability, and depth. Fancy-cut wood floors, like patterned parquet, evoke European elegance and a gilded age of decoration. Slate, stone, and tile are no-nonsense surfaces for foyer, sunroom, or bath.

Part of an expansion of a Shingle Style house on Cape Cod, this bath makeover created rooms within rooms with decorative sliding doors that don’t block sunlight. Design by Hutker Architects. (Photo: Brian Vanden Brink)

Houses built before about 1880 were lucky to have indoor plumbing, much less a bathroom exclusively for the “master” of the house. Fortunately, those with older houses have discovered many ingenious ways to include en suite baths, whether sumptuous or modest, in their homes.

Two options present themselves: conversion of existing space, or building an addition. While some conversions do indeed swallow an entire bedroom or even a full floor, other baths are chiseled out of “found” space, as under the attic eaves, or from closets, even placed in hallways.

Whether it’s tucked in or added on, treating the bathroom as an extension of living space makes the transition from the bedroom seamless. Use a complementary wallpaper pattern or related paint colors, don’t skimp on trim details, add a sconce (or chandelier), and hang pictures.

Add On or Expand

In an 1892 Queen Anne with three and a half stories, David Heide Design Studio enlarged the area adjacent to the master bedroom with a period-style bath and adjacent dressing room. Details include a roll-rimmed Roman tub, dual pedestal sinks, and a his-and-hers dressing room.

As part of the renovation of a Shingle Style house in coastal Massachusetts, the owners created a master suite filled with period details that meld effectively with the age and style of the house. Like a window seat, a Roman pedestal tub is recessed into the light-filled alcove, and built-in drawers, cubbies, and cabinets abound. Next to a marble-topped vanity with double sinks, a pair of sliding doors with leaded glass insets admit natural light from an adjacent hallway.

Put It in a Hallway

In a historic 1913 building with Tudor details that had been converted to condominiums in the 1970s, the goal was to return architectural integrity to the interior spaces (which included a later wing addition) while restoring period details. In remodeling the wing to create a bedroom suite, architect David Heide created a “master hallway” between the bedroom and the main bathing area. Along the comfortably wide linear space is a mirrored vanity with dual sinks, a built-in dresser, and other storage. In the tub room, decorative moldings around the mirror give tribute to a Jacobean plaster relief ceiling in the apartment’s living room. In other words, the bathroom is treated as another room, not a service area.

Convert a Bedroom

In an 1892 Victorian Queen Anne, quarter-sawn oak paneling and a basketweave tile floor with inlaid borders are period details in a new master bath by David Heide Design Studio. (Photo: Susan Gilmore)

On the top floor of a Sears bungalow in Minneapolis, the owners turned two smallish rooms and a cramped bathroom into a miniature suite. The bathroom is tucked between the bedroom and a walk-in closet. There is one old-house compromise: access to the bath is from a short hallway off the master bedroom. Because other bedrooms are guest rooms, the owner sacrifices privacy only when visitors are sleeping in the house.

Similarly, the owners of an 1887 Queen Anne in New Jersey converted the bedroom next to their own room into a new master bath, skillfully packing it with amenities that include a shower for two and a walk-in closet. They also managed to cadge enough space for two new closets: one for linens in the hall, and a tiny one for the bedroom on the other side of the new bath. Contractor Jeff Loux removed and re-used the original floorboards and incorporated salvaged tiles, a pedestal sink, and a leaded-glass window into the retrofit.

A wainscot of painted blind-nailed planks dates to the 1700s. (Photo: Sandy Agrafiotis)

Before the age of gypsum and drywall, interior plaster walls were vulnerable to all sorts of potential damage. Hence the wainscot: a protective and decorative covering for the lower third (or so) of the wall. Early ones were always wood, but later innovations would introduce many alternatives. Wainscots have a habit of popping back into style in fresh and unexpected ways.

Plank wall. A posh early American interior before 1750 might have had a wainscot of horizontal or vertical boards against the plaster. As the makings for paint became available or affordable, the planks might be smoothed over with rich color. Plank wainscots in First Period dwellings tend to look ancient, so it’s a bit surprising that the plank wainscot was under constant reinvention throughout the 20th century.

Paneling. A favorite treatment for the main room in late-18th-century houses, paneling often covered the wall around the hearth, even entire rooms. Formal raised-panel wainscot consists of a floating wood panel with beveled edges, held in place between vertical stiles and horizontal rails. Beveling the panel’s edges creates a three-dimensional surface. A variation, the flat-panel wainscot, is probably a Shaker invention.

Custom raised-panel millwork in creamy white is a new addition to a Colonial Revival-era house. (Photo: Eric Roth)

Today, modular paneling systems create the look without the labor. These new materials are made of dimensionally stable composites of wood or resin easily cut by machine. They also install in sections, and, like tile, come with interchangeable trim components like cap rails.

Dadoes. Formal Victorian rooms of the late 19th century demanded treatments that began at the baseboard and rose to the ceiling like a classical entablature. By then, wood paneling had become too expensive for all but the wealthiest of homeowners. Looking for ways to expand the market for linoleum, Frederick Walton created Lincrusta, a linoleum-based embossed wallcovering, in 1883. An embossed cotton rag-based paper, Anaglypta, soon followed. Embossed papers were ubiquitous as treatments for the dado—the section of the Victorian wall below a chair rail. Competing treatments included real and imitation embossed leathers and textured fabrics.

Batten paneling. Board-and-batten siding is composed of wide planks laid vertically at a height that covers approximately two-thirds of the wall. Narrow strips of wood called battens cover the joints. Capped at the top with a molded plate rail, board-and-batten paneling was a suitably austere alternative to the perceived excesses of Victorian wallcoverings.

Batten paneling (over paint) in a new house in Portland, Oregon. (Photo: Philip Clayton-Thompson)

Not every Arts & Crafts aesthete could afford solid wood, of course. Variations included “paneling” the walls between battens with other materials—leather, faux leather, an embossed wallcovering, and especially burlap. (This was called skeleton wainscot in period millwork catalogs.)

Beadboard. A product of late-Victorian millwork, beadboard was (and still is) a low-cost alternative to fancier wall cladding. In the decades around 1900, it was the paneling of choice in back-of-the-house rooms like the kitchen, and was a cheap way to finish walls in seasonal cottages.

About Proportion

Original, reclaimed, or newly manufactured, beadboard spells charm. (Photo: Paul Rocheleau)

Wainscots need to be installed with some sensitivity to the proportions of the room. Generally, the wainscot should be either one-third or two-thirds of the overall height of the room. It’s OK to add a few inches if you want a more imposing presence, but don’t deviate on the low side, or your wainscot may look skimpy. For a room with 8′ to 9′ ceilings, for example, the wainscot should be at least 32″ and up to 42″. Go proportionately higher for a room with a taller ceiling. Taller wainscots finished with a plate rail—in an Arts & Crafts dining room, for instance—should be at least 60″ to 72″ high. Never install wainscoting or a chair rail exactly halfway up a wall, or you’ll visually cut the room in two.

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