If you should look in the yellow-covered Farmer’s Almanac, hanging by a loop in the chimney corner, you’d see, “About this time look out for clearing weather;” that means clearing out and cleaning up and setting the house in order inside, as well as old Mother Earth outside: what our mothers call “spring cleaning.” Curtains come down to be washed and put up again, and it’s a good time, too, to put up curtains where there never have been any, for nothing makes a room look more homelike and inviting than drapery of some sort or other, no matter how simple.
It used to be the fashion to tack curtains across the top of a window-frame with a strip of stamped brass-work called a cornice, or a bit of bright chintz, or turkey red, or something like a ruffle, to cover the edges; but curtain poles, or rods and rings, are the fashion now. They are prettier than the other things, and have one advantage beside: the curtains can be pushed quite to one side when one wants more air or light, and can be drawn close together again when more perfect shade is needed.
Suppose you want to fix up your own room to look pretty and not cost very much. I found it good fun to make something useful out of something other people had discarded as useless. I’ll tell you how I made my room look cosey, and what I did it with. It had just one window, a half-dormer as they call it, and looked to the west, out over the hills; but the sun shone in very bright and hot in the afternoon, and I had to have a dark shade which I fitted myself from one that had belonged to a larger window. It kept the sun out, but it was not pretty, and I was determined to have some draperies. Of course I could not make curtains, for a boy is more handy with a hammer than a needle; but when mother found what I was up to, she said she’d give me the curtains if I could do all the rest. They were very simple, just cream-colored Nottingham lace, and cost $1.00. They might have been made of unbleached strainer cloth at six cents a yard, with a ruffle, if this had been for your mother or sister who didn’t mind sewing; but it is the pole I mean to tell you about.
I’m sure to look at it you would never guess what that pole was, or where I got it.
Up in the attic, in one corner, I found an old United States map, so old, so out of date that as a map it had been useless for years and years, for it was printed when the State of Ohio was “way out West.” The map used to hang in grandfather’s library half a century ago. It had black rollers with acorn knobs on the ends. I thought right away that the smooth slender pole would be just the thing for a curtain pole if I could get the map off without splitting the roller which was of soft pine stained black. A sharp knife and a little care did it. One of the knobs was easily loosened. Then I measured carefully over my window and cut the pole the right length and fitted the knobs smoothly into place. A little sandpaper and a coat of varnish made my stained pine roller look like ebony. But what was I to do for curtain rings! The pole was too slender for the heavy wooden rings sold by the dozen at the upholsterer’s; besides I did not want to spend any money. Back to the attic I went and rummaged in what we call the “trumpery box,” full of the odds and ends that accumulate in an old house. Among a lot of brass knobs and hooks and hinges, I came across a lot of dingy metal rings tied together with a bit of stout string. The rings were about an inch and a half across; I could not tell what the rings were made of, they were so black, but I thought a good washing would bring out the complexion, so I put the rings into a bath of ammonia and soda, which soon showed that under the black coating was something very much like brass. A stiff brush and a little fine pummice gave me a dozen glittering rings, six for each curtain. I divided the curtains evenly; with strong thread fastened the rings in place on the upper edge of each curtain and slipped them on to the pole. Two inches from the ends of the pole I screwed the little rings through which the cord had passed when the map was hung. A little hook at each end of the upper window frame served to hang my pole, which of course was very light, but heavy enough for muslin or lace. In the same “trumpery box” I found two brass knobs (door knobs, I guess they were). I screwed one of these each side of the window and looped back my curtains. There was my window, as new-fashioned or as old-fashioned as you choose to call it, but very pretty and inexpensive.
There are few old houses in the country that would not give at least as much to work with as I had. The old rollers on old-fashioned paper shades, such as you will find in lots of up-country attics, would make just as good poles stained and varnished. Even the acorn caps are not essential, for many of the most fashionable portieres and curtain poles, nowadays, especially those of bamboo, have no caps at all on the ends: only then you put a screw in at right angles, to keep the end ring from coming off.
That was the first curtain pole that I put up. The next room I tried my hand on had a bay with three windows, and was harder to manage, but it did not cost very much after all. I saw an advertisement of an odd lot of curtain poles with rings and brackets complete for seventy-five cents apiece. Since then I have seen them advertised for sixty cents, which is cheaper than you can get the wood and turn them for yourself.
I found that two poles would do for the three windows, for the side windows were narrow, and half a pole was enough for each. I only wanted two ends instead of the four that belonged with the poles, so a trifle was allowed, enough to give me some extra rings and two extra brackets.
The first thing to do was to get the angle of the bay: this I did with some mathematical instruments, but you might not have those handy, and this way will give it near enough. Take a good-sized piece of stiff paper (stout wrapping paper will do), lay a straight edge on the floor against the mop-board of the middle window, and fold the end of the paper to exactly fit the side mop-board, something like this. Then fold the straight edges together and you will have the angle shown in the dotted line.
Measure length of middle and side windows and cut the poles at the angle shown by the folded paper: a few brads will secure the slanting ends when they are neatly put together.