Los Feliz Spanish Revival Living Room

A 1928 Spanish Revival living room with original plaster, a carved limestone fireplace, and three 9-foot arched-top casement openings. The previous installation used short, rod-pocket panels that interrupted the arches and visually compressed an 11-foot ceiling.

I specified hand-tacked French pleat drapery, ceiling-mounted on hand-forged iron rods, with the panels stopping just at the floor. The brief was to let the architecture breathe — the arches were the original ornament, the drapery the quiet supporting frame.

Heavyweight Belgian linen in a warm oat tone, interlined with bump for fold weight and lined in ivory cotton sateen. Linen was the only correct answer: it ages with the limestone, holds a hand-tacked pleat for decades, and reads as period-correct against the original plaster.

Hand-forged iron rods in a dark bronze finish with hammered finials, ceiling-mounted on extended brackets to clear the original molding. Rings are ball-bearing for hand-draw smoothness.

Fullness specified at 2.75x with three-finger French pleats spaced 4 inches on center. Steam-trained at the workroom; folds dressed on site over a single morning. Returns mitered into the wall so the leading edge sits flat against the plaster.

The arches now read uninterrupted, the room measures 11 feet but reads closer to 13, and the drapery has the formality the residence was originally designed to carry. My recommendation to any owner of a Spanish Revival home: stop the drapery at the architecture, never at the window.