Some method of controlling natural light must be afforded by the window treatment. Venetian blinds are preferable for this purpose, because they can be adjusted instantly to the varying height of the sun; whereas moveable draperies, lined and interlined to make them opaque, either will exclude the light altogether when closed, or leave a band of bright light from top to bottom when partially closed.
Glass curtains are not always used on windows which have Venetian blinds and draperies. When such draperies are omitted, thin unlined curtains in a neutral or in a positive color are used alone. They should be made to draw, with sufficient material to provide double fullness when fully drawn.
Sunroom draperies may be of any material not too heavy to accord with the scale of the room or too elegant to accord with its decorative character and other furnishings. Choice among plain, simply figured, and strikingly figured fabrics will be governed by the size of the room and the amount of ornament in other surfaces.
THE SALE OF SUNROOM MERCHANDISE
Suggestions will be welcomed.—Although no new principles are involved in the sale of sunroom merchandise, the subject merits brief comment. A woman interested in home furnishings for any other room in her home is likely to have fairly definite ideas of her own, or least to be familiar with conventional methods of furnishing these rooms. This makes the salesman's talk one of discovering and interpreting her ideas, and helping to carry them out by means of his own merchandise. With the sunroom this is not often the case. It is relatively a new room, serving one purpose in one home, another in the second, and none at all in the third. Customers are likely to be open to suggestions, and to buy better merchandise and with less resistance, in the degree that these suggestions are clever and a little out of the ordinary.
This means that initiative and imagination are necessary to marked success in selling sunroom furnishings,[30] and that accordingly we must be alert both to gain ideas on sunroom treatments from books, magazines, and markets, and to study our own merchandise from the viewpoint of its possibilities for sunroom decoration.
SUNROOM TREATMENTS
The old days when reed and willow were top favorites for sunrooms has passed. Despite the fact that many beautiful styles in these materials are on the market, other types of furnishings have moved into the sunroom to augment and in many instances replace the old favorites.
Early American furniture in soft brown or honey-colored, maple, covered in chintz or printed linens, or in one of the many new textures developed for this type, is a happy choice for many sunrooms. Others are attractive when equipped with light-colored woods upholstered in lovely pastel fabrics. Chrome-steel furniture offers many opportunities for the sunroom as do bentwood, glass, enameled furniture, and rattan.