Don't get hung up over made-to-measure curtains
New curtains - it's a material decision
Curtains are not that popular in Italy since most people
prefer the absolute darkness given by 'scuri' or shutters. To our mind,
though, these wooden screens are both ugly and depressing (when compared
to curtains) although there is no questioning their effectiveness at
performing their function. We wanted bright and cheerful curtains,
though, for our new option room.
First job - find a drapery where they can do made-to-measure curtains.
Not such an easy matter as one might think because of the lack of demand
for curtains here. Eventually through word of mouth, folk memory and
research we found three shops who claimed they could help. One curtains
outlet was basically just an agent for a group of seamstresses and had
little idea about the materials or how it would be done. His prices were
also very high and we thought we could save money on them. Another had an equally limited amount of curtain
material so we were left with one option - a shop run by an elderly
couple a good hour's drive from our home.
We were quite pleased with the idea, though, because the whole shop is
dedicated to making made-to-measure curtains and nothing else. In our
case, the drop was going to be critical because some of the windows were
above recesses for radiators.
We waded through their selection of curtain material picking out the
samples which most appealed. They weren't able to give us fixed prices
at that time because they had to see how much material would be used and
how much it would cost - a visit to our home would come first. They
could and did, however, tell us what the making and fixing charges were
- something which was clearly unaffected by the cost of the curtains.
A week or so later they both arrived and went from room to room
measuring the windows for width and drop, arguing and recording the
data. We were promised a quotation for the made-to-measure curtains in a
few days but we had to phone to chase for a price.
When we got the quote, we were surprised to see that the charge for
making the curtains had increased considerably from their original
estimate in the shop - something which was not easy for us to
understand. When we queried this, there followed some unpleasantness -
it is not the Italian way to question prices - one just pays. Well, that
is not our way and we managed to knock them down by some of the
inexplicable increase and asked them to go ahead.
Several weeks later, again after having been chased, they arrived to
hang the curtains. The husband was up and down the ladder drilling the
holes for the curtain rods and she stood alongside him handing up the
material and arguing with him about which way each finial should point.
A few hours later and we finally had our new curtains!
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