Falling Banners Redux

I cannot express in words how fortunate I feel  when people trust me to decorate their homes, to offer my little part to the improvement of their living space. When I really think about why it is what I do, and why I spend so much time honing my craft and my skill I see that a large part of this is due to the awesome responsibility that has been bestowed upon me by my clients.
Anna and I recently completed a project in West Vancouver in an amazing place for a very inspiring client. ...


... Again we were charged with the design and manufacture of several vast curtain walls a stairwell feature and some of the most incredibly technical upholstery we have ever undertaken. All of this will be come to light soon on our blog but I wanted first to share with you the stairwell which caused me a great deal of consternation and challenged me to find new ways to install and handle this large scale undertaking.


Below you can see the amazing stair well during construction. Although architecturally interesting the view is plagued by a hideous looking building to the East (apologies if you live in said building... i am sure the inside is nice, but let's face it, the exterior is absolutely hideous). My client was very sensitive to this and asked me to design something that was both architectonic, and private without feeling closed in. The incredible height of this space ( 24 feet in vertical height) needed to remain relevant and in fact was a big consideration to the design of this feature treatment.

For this particular application we used a high quality linen gauze. Linen comes in many qualities and there are few as nice as this. Good quality linen has a long yarn length, is very smooth to the touch and has extraordinary uniformity in it's weave. Although irregularity is a hallmark of linen as well, the really beautiful linens are very refined. Anna and I set about covering the 450 square feet of vertical space making  over 30 banners in the sheer gauze and multi layered them to create a random soft wall that offers privacy, light filter and depth at the window. Sounds pretty simple... until you realize that linen stretches approximately 3%, in this case that is a variance of upto 7". That and we created seams so fine that they are less than 1/4" wide and offer no interruption to the treatment. We used the magical technique of fabric welding, one of our hallmarks to create ultra long, ultra stable hems.

Below you can see me packing the treatment, itself a huge task given linen's propensity to stretch and wrinkle...

Here's me! 24 feet in the air hanging the treatment! This was a little scary as I could have fallen and that would have led to my end as one of the world's pre-eminent curtainmakers. There is still much to do in this realm... But I didn't fall, I am fine actually! 

Below is the finished treatment.... I leave now, words are not really necessary anymore.

:) !

did you notice how perfectly straight the hem is? each one was perfect!