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.

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.