Curtain Call
The apartment is coming along nicely. Yesterday, one contractor installed our new curtains and another contractor hung our art while selling me the idea of installing mouldings on our walls (more on this later).
For the curtains, the colors are pretty much like our wall colors. A jewel tone green for the drapes in the living room in a lush silk-like material. The living room sheers are recycled from our apartment in Singapore. In the master bedroom, we used the same material as in the living room but in a different color. We used ecru with a black 6-inch border on the sides and the bottom to go with the black lacquered wall. We also installed them on the ceiling for more impact. It’s an old decorating trick that is employed to lengthen a room and to give an illusion that your windows are actually longer than they really are. The sheers are in a gauzy silvery metallic like fabric. For the guest bedroom, we used the curtains we had in our master bedroom in Singapore: drapes in pewter and sheers in charcoal. For the study, we used drapes that look like the color of blue sapphires. It will take a couple of days before the curtains will fall gracefully and for the creases to iron themselves out but needless to say, we are very pleased with the result. And again, the photos don’t do justice. I should use a camera and not my iPhone.
While the curtain installer was drilling holes for the rods in our bedroom, the other contractor was drilling holes on our walls. We placed our newly-acquired green James Nares artwork entitled Epigraph 4 against one pale green wall, above a mother of pearl console table with chrome legs. Our Richard Serra etching (Extension #3) went on the adjacent wall. The other Serra (Out the Window at the Square Diner), a lithograph, went on the opposite wall, right beside what will be a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf with a working ladder come March. Both Serra’s we acquired on our trip to New York in September from Gemini G.E.L on Madison Avenue. A small orange Ellsworth Kelly is on one wall.
In the master bedroom hangs an oil pointing by Paolo Troilo which we bought one summer in Positano, Italy. A painting with such powerful and moving brushstrokes that it makes you wonder whether the subject is in pain or ecstasy.
As in our study in Singapore, we have a one wall that is a gallery of pictures and artworks we’ve collected over the years, some bought, others printed from past fashion editorials I worked on. The piece de resistance is the Alex Katz woodblock print.
