LOUIS XV
WINDOW SHADES AND BLINDS
PART I.
Modern decorative thought has been directed to almost every article in the equipment of a house with more or less artistic result; but with few exceptions the articles on the market for the purpose of excluding the sun or shutting out the vision have been plain and ordinary in the extreme, despite the fact that the treatment of the windows as presented to view from the exterior has much to do with the general appearance of a house.
From the day when the housewife made her own shades out of green paper or white cotton up to the present, the chief requirements seem to have been opacity and the faculty of being easily rolled, folded, or in some way put easily out of sight when not in use. One of the oldest methods, still recommended and manufactured for this purpose, is the rolling shade, made of thin slats of wood, laced together with twine to form a flat flexible curtain or shade, rolled from the bottom by means of a cord passed over a pulley.
For public institutions, offices or verandas, where usefulness and efficiency may be desired more than decorative value, they serve the purpose very well; but it can never be claimed that they tend to beautify the room in which they are used.
The tilting slat blind, which gathers from the bottom, and tilts with a touch of the hand as a child’s Jacob’s ladder, is also used for the same purpose, with the same limitations.
The sliding or folding inside shutter, illustrated in figures 79 and 80, came near to accomplishing the purpose, but had such a knack of getting out of order, and presented such a jail-like, uninhabited appearance, that they, too, have been almost altogether discarded.
In rare cases we find them still in use, and where adverse criticism would not be well received it is best for the decorator to adjust his schemes so as to include them, and, if possible, hide their unsightliness.