Architecture and Interiors — Reading the Room
How I walk a residence before specifying a single panel, and what the architecture is almost always telling the drapery to do.
Every project the studio accepts begins with a walk through the residence in silence. Before the conversation, before the swatches, before any discussion of fabric or hardware — a slow walk, room by room, listening to what the architecture is asking the drapery to do.
A coved ceiling is asking for a hand-tacked pleat. A flat-line modern ceiling with a recessed pocket is asking for ripple fold. A wall of west-facing glass is asking for a performance sheer. A traditional library with exposed iron stair-rail is asking for hand-forged bronze rods. The room almost always knows what it wants; the work of the designer is to listen rather than to impose.
The mistake I see most often in residential interiors is the reverse — the drapery is selected first, from a swatch book or a Pinterest board, and the architecture is forced to accept it. The result is a drapery that fights the room every day it hangs there.
I work in the other direction. The architecture leads. The drapery answers. The room reads as inevitable.
Olga Rechdouni is the principal designer of House of Drapery and a consulting specialist on custom drapery for the residential interiors of Los Angeles. She is a member of the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) and works privately with homeowners, interior designers, and architects.