Diagram of Ring.
During a summer spent in one of these cottages on the coast of Maine, its many possibilities in the way of decoration were revealed, and personal experience has demonstrated that even the plainest of these temporary abiding-places is capable of being greatly beautified in a short time, and with materials usually close at hand, being obtainable from the fishermen and from the sea itself.
Looping for Curtains.
The windows first claim our attention in any house and our little cottage is no exception to the rule. With, or without, the regulation shades, windows should always be draped; the formality of their straight lines and angles can be subdued in no other way.
Light, airy curtains are suitable for summer, and the prettiest, most graceful window-drapery imaginable can be made of ordinary fish-net. An oar for a pole; rings made of rope (Fig. 39); the looping formed of a rope tied in a sailor’s knot; and a wooden hoop, such as is used to attach the sail to the mast on a sail-boat (Fig. 40) are all that are necessary for the completion of this nautical curtain. Small rings screwed into the oar, with corresponding hooks in the window-frame just above the window, will hold the oar securely in place. The looping should hang from a hook fastened in the wall near the window. The illustration given here will aid the imagination in picturing the effect of a window treated in this simple manner. Another pretty curtain may be made of unbleached cotton, with bands of blue at top and bottom covered with the ever-decorative fish-net.
Gray linen curtains, with strips of the net set in as insertion at top and bottom, will also be found extremely pretty and serviceable; or they may be composed of strips of linen and net, of equal width, running the length of the curtain. Made up in either way the effect is excellent.
Sea-side Cottage Window.