VISITING STYLIST
CILLE GRUT
Photo: Anders Hviid
STYLIST CILLE GRUT: NOW IT IS I, WHO MASTER THE LIGHT AND THE AMBIENCE ‘
Interior stylist Cille Grut never had curtains in the large bay window in her dining room before and the curtains in her bedroom were far from optimal. But with a curtain track bent exactly in the shape of the bay window and a redesigned cornice in the bedroom, both rooms got a completely new functionality. Not to mention a new ambience.
HOUSE FROM 1875
Close to Dyrehaven is a house from 1875, which was originally built as a summer house, when Copenhageners wanted to escape the polluted city and enjoy the clean ocean air. Interior stylist Cille Grut lives in this house with her husband, her youngest daughter and their two dogs. Her two older children have already flown from the nest, but the house is their childhood home, as it has been in the family’s possession since 2003.
Portrait of Cille Grut / Photo: Anders Hviid
AP 1100 / Shadow White
ALWAYS GO FOR BEST QUALITY
Cille Grut works with interior styling and visual staging – among other things as a regular stylist for Royal Copenhagen. She is an expert on interior design news and trends, but rarely buys anything new for her own home:
– I surround myself with things which have meaning for me, both on an aesthetic and a personal level. I rarely buy new furniture; at most a few new cushions for the sofa when the season changes. I was brought up in an architect home and taught to always go for the best quality you can afford. Better to wait…
Actually, we have collected our furniture over many years, but funnily enough, I don’t get tired of anything. Instead of replacing things, I prefer to add something new to create a different balance.
A recent addition to Cille Grut’s home, which really has created a different balance, is the new curtains in both her dining room and bedroom.
CURTAINS ADD SOFTNESS
The house has an amazingly sunny room with a large west-facing bay window, which the family uses as a dining room. However, in the nearly 20 years they have lived there, there has never been any curtains in the bay window. And the family has just lived with this room being almost impossible to use on the sunniest summer days.
– I was afraid that curtains would take up too much space and spoil the look of the beautiful window – but that did not happen at all. I now have a curved curtain track that follows the outer shape of the bay window precisely. Something we didn’t know was even possible to make, and especially not as elegantly as our track from Stilling, says Cille Grut.
With a craftsmanship heritage dating back to 1949, Stilling was able to create a perfect solution. Instead of making several individual curtain tracks for Cille’s bay window, which would make the curtains static and fixed, we used a specialized ‘bay window bending”. This bending of the curtain track, can only be made manually by trained craftspeople.
Impressively, it’s one long track and the curtains are mounted in 4 separate panels, so that I can now block the light exactly where it suits me, by moving the panels as the sun moves over the course of the day. It has made a huge difference. Now it is I, who master the light and the ambience in the room. I can “wrap the room” with my curtains and they add a softness which was not there before.
RECYCLED ALUMINIUM
The curtain track is an AP 1100 S in recycled aluminium. The soft shape and discreet fittings of the profile make it an obvious choice for this historic house. It matches the stucco of the ceiling. And is also lacquered in the same colour as the dining room walls – Shadow White from Farrow and Ball. The curtain fabric is from Icelandic Casalisa, sewn with our Perfect Wave system.
– I actually painted my dining room to match the colour of the curtain fabric, and asked Stilling to custom lacquer the curtain track so that all the colours match tone-on-tone. For me, it is very much about tactility. The room should not overpower your senses, but create the right setting and atmosphere for people to feel comfortable. I love to “soften” the rooms, smiles Cille Grut.
EXACTLY LIKE GRANDMAS
It was not only in the dining room that curtains created a new atmosphere. In the bedroom Cille Grut already had double curtains, but they were a little too small and a little too sheer:
– Our bedroom faces east and although the sunrises are fantastic over Øresund, the sun rises in the summer at 03.30. It requires effective blocking and we didn’t have that, says Cille Grut.
– Now we have a completely old school cornice, just like my grandmothers. Only hers was covered with fabric – and I think that’s a bit old-fashioned and manor-like. Mine is painted in the same colour as the wall and therefore it just blends in beautifully.
2 SIZES, 2 LOOKS
The bedroom walls are a delicate greyish color, which changes according to the season, light and weather and therefore goes from pink to gray over a dusty blue. But it is not just the colours that are changeable, it is also the visual expression of the cornice, as Cille Grut has bought it in two heights (AP 2668 S & AP 2694S). Thus, with a single push she can exchange the low cornice for a slightly taller one.
– The two sizes were a gamble. I was actually quite convinced that I wanted the low one, but when the tall one came up it was somehow just more beautiful… I think maybe the low one will be my winter choice; they are super easy to switch, says Cille Grut.
NOW I SLEEP MUCH BETTER
Two slim curtain tracks are hidden behind the painted cornice. One carrying a sheer, chalk-white curtain from Casalisa, and one carrying a grey-violet curtain from Danish Pagunette, which, like the walls, seems to change it’s colour depending on the weather.
– The outer curtain is matched perfectly to the colour of the bedroom and I love the calmness that comes from working tonally with the colours, says Cille Grut.
– Our new bedroom curtains have 2 functions. One is to shield us from people looking in, for this purpose the light and transparent curtains are perfect. BUT the biggest plus is that the thick curtains, which are made of a heavy linen blend, are lined so that they become blackout curtains and together with the cornice this means that NO light gets in. I definitely sleep better much better now.
DREAMS OF MORE CURTAINS
After her experience with the new curtains, Cille Grut now has more curtains on her wish list.
– I have a sad curtain in my bathroom, which I made from a scrap of fabric when I realized that the neighbours could see a little too much when the light in the bathroom was on. So I’m actually considering a completely old-fashioned Gardisette voile, which will give us privacy while still allowing daylight to enter the room.
– Curtains simply do EVERYTHING for the rooms! With the softness they provide, and the possibility of creating moods by filtering and mastering the daylight: The rooms simply become nicer to inhabit, concludes Cille Grut.