We are updating some of our Drapery Hardware Pages.  Really cool new finials, holdbacks and tiebacks to see!  Check them out!

The Holiday Season is upon us and our little drapery elves are working their little fingers off trying to get your curtains ready and shipped before the Holidays!  We love this time of year.  It is our busiest time for sure and our Seamstresses really do love when they have a ton of work to do.  We are working 7 days per week in our workroom from now until all of our Christmas order commitments are shipped.

It is this time of year when we are really busy that we are really most thankful for all of the orders we get during the year.  It is so gratifying to be able to employ such great People and make great product right here in the USA.  Thank you to all of our Customers who have supported us for well over a decade.

So we launched a fresh new site design last week, really hope you like it.  Our goal is to provide you with more great information on our custom made drapery and curtain products and show you more images of our products.  We will never be “done” but I think we are always moving in the right direction.

We also finished the beta on our new iPad Application design.  We updated it with more great drapery pictures and most importantly we have now integrated the ability for you to order fabric samples directly form the App.  Most Retailers like DrapeStyle who have relied on a printed catalog for decades are looking to, or have already completely abandoned their print catalog.  I don;t think that we will ever completely eliminate our catalog but having complimentary tools like our iPad App will only expand our presence in our Customers Homes.  We really hope you enjoy the App and, if you still want the printed Catalog, it will always be available for you.

Thanks for your support and for our entire IT Team for their efforts.

Our hearts go out to everyone in the Tri-State Area.  At DrapeStyle we have a very special connection to the area, especially the Jersey Shore where several of us are from and we still spend a great deal of time there.  The one important truth that I keep reminding myself us is the resilience of the American People, especially those from New York and New Jersey.

It is easy to forget that hurricanes, major hurricanes are frequent along the Central Atlantic Seaboard.  As I child I was a witness to several.  I also remember my grandmother showing me photos of the storm that hit Long Beach Island in 1962.  My Family has had a home on LBI since the early sixties and in the late fifties my grandfather would often spend weekends in the fall on LBI duck hunting.  He was there in 1962 when a storm nearly wiped the island away.  Although not considered a hurricane, the storm of 62′ cleared nearly all of the home off the island.  Of course, when these homes were built they weren’t built to today’s building codes.  Almost none of the houses were built on pilings and most were used as weekend bungalows or hunting cabins.  After the storm of 1962 building codes required homes to be built to much higher standards and piling requirements were made code.

Our LBI Home is in Ship Bottom.  We’re at the center of the island in a working class neighborhood.  Not nearly as popular as Beach Haven and not as cosmopolitan as Love Ladies but it has been our family retreat since the mid-sixties.  My father bought the home after we had rented it for a couple summer weekends.  The owner just asked if he was interested and after an exchange of about $6,000 our family owned an LBI home.  My dad often laughs that, at the time, he had no idea what the house was worth – or that he could have bought a beach front or bay front home for maybe $500 more.  Didn’t really matter and still doesn’t.  My childhood was spent at that home and most of my happiest memories are there.

Nearly half of a century after after my parents purchased the home it is still as much of a part of my Families DNA than ever before.  My children now consider LBI their summer home and although we live on the west coast, not a mile from the beach, they can’t wait until we travel back to LBI every summer.  For them, LBI is the beach.

The little shack that we spent the summers in when I was a child was replaced by a new home in the mid-1980′s.  The original home that we named “The Aussie” was the “original” LBI Home.  What it lacked in amenities it certainly made up for in character.  No heat, no air-conditioning and a screen door that I can still hear slapping shut when I think about it.  Every inch of that house had memories attached to it.  Memories that I hope I never forget.

Time will pass for this disaster and homes will be rebuilt.  Neighbors will become closer and communities will thrive.

We Love Long Beach Island New Jersey at DrapeStyle!

We get calls all of the time about installing our drapes all across the US and Canada.  Our list of DrapeStyle Installers has you covered – coast-to-coast.  Our custom drapery ships all over the world including Austrailia, Switzerland and the UK.  But we really like shipping luxurious DrapeStyle Drapery to places like Flower Mound Texas, The Woodlands, Charlotte North Carolina and all over South Florida.  We’ve got you covered in Boca Raton, Miami and all of Broward County.  We’ve got you covered in Ocean County New Jersey, all of North and South Jersey for that matter.  Chicagoland?  Yep, how is Naperville, Hinsdale and Oakpark?

We may be based in California but after over a decade of installing our Roman Blinds, Drapery Hardware and Window Treatments all over this Country we are pretty confident that we’ve got you covered from Kona to Kansas City.

We just shipped out new 36 page drapery catalog about a week ago.  Man, it really is a lot of hard work to put one of these together.  We’re all so excited when we got it back from the printer, smelling the ink (just one of our staff was) and then here comes the mail for today.  Right on top of the pile is the new Restoration Hardware Catalog.  My gosh, really?  This thing is like three volumes thick, each volume over a hundred pages!  They must have a staff of 50 people working on this thing!

Crazy how expensive the printing of a good catalog is too.  To be honest, we have printed our catalog for years in China where we were spending about half of what we would pay to print in the US.  This edition, however, we brought it back to the US.  It is noticeably better quality, especially the colors.  When you are selling widgets and the color doesn’t make a big difference than maybe you can print in china, but when selling custom curtains and drapery color matters.  We’re back in the US to stay, I’m pretty confident of that.

Oh, the iPad version of the catalog is out too.  We love the iPad and we are making some great new improvements to it that will be out next month.  Soon you will be able to order fabric samples directly from the iPad App!  Pretty sweet!

DrapeStyle Custom Drapery Catalog

When you are looking for new custom drapery to cover your large, small or odd sized windows, chances are that you won’t find what you need at one of the chain stores.  Most of the chain stores carry ready-made drapes that are made in India or China and typically come in for or five sizes.

My Sister recently bought a new home in Haddonfield New Jersey.  Haddonfield is in Southern New Jersey and is a really gorgeous historical town.  The homes in Haddonfield are historical and very traditional with plenty of character to spare.  When Pam purchased the home she wanted to replace all of the drapery with a combination of silk and linen.  Because the windows are nearly 200 years old they are quite drafty and don’t provide a great deal of insulation during the cold New Jersey winters.

When Pam measured the windows none of them were what you would consider “standard” sizes.  They also weren’t very large.  Her ceilings are high but like most homes built during this period the windows (glass was an expensive luxury) were small and drafty.  An important thing to remember is just because you you have small windows you should still select you drapery as if they were large windows.  Especially if you have high ceilings.  Adding tall drapery will add a great deal of height to the space and hide the fact that you have small windows.

In my Sisters home will also added English Bump Interlining.  English Bump is a very thick cotton flannel lining that has been used for centuries to help provide insulation in homes. As you would guess by the name, English Bump originated in England where wealthy aristocrats would use it to insulate their drafty homes.  Bump still works amazingly well and really makes a room cozy and well insulated.  Another benefit of Bump is that it really adds weight to the drapery and makes them “hang” very elegantly.  If you have a drafty room you should really consider Bump.  Also consider this golden rule for truly elegant and luxurious drapery and curtains, if you have large windows, tall windows, round windows or small windows, you still want to use the maximum height available.  Don’t skimp with standard size ready-made drapes, truth is you can get quality custom drapery which will last years longer and provide you with great insulation.

We often get phone calls about ready-made drapes.  You know, the ones sold at Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware as well as other larger retailers.  These drapes are typically made in China or India and are available in “standard” lengths and widths.  Generally ready-made drapes come in 84 inches, 96 inches and 108 inches and come in a rod-pocket header or pleat style.  There really is nothing wrong with ready-mades and for the majority of home-owners they will work just fine.

The challenge with ready-made curtains is when you have a window that is not “standard”.  Most new homes today are being built with custom windows that are no longer cookie cutter, standard window sizes.  Windows today are typically wider than average and certainly much taller than standard.  With taller and wider windows you really are not going to get away with ready-made curtains or drapery.  Especially if you you are looking for quality of fabrics and linings.

When we speak to Customers who have a ready-made budget but custom taste we often direct them to the discount department of our website called THE | OUTLET.  We started THE OUTLET about five years ago as a way of selling, at deep discounts, the remnant drapery fabrics that we had left over from orders we had finished.  At DrapeStyle, we literally make each drapery by hand and we will very often have left-over fabrics.  We started to store all of these fabrics in a small warehouse space that we had and then one day realized, wow, we have a lot of fabric left over and so THE | OUTLET was born.

The important thing to realize about our Outlet is that you are not buying damaged or rejected items.  In most cases you are just buying drapery that we are making from remnant fabrics from larger jobs.  When we list curtains or drapery on The Outlet we will calculate what the maximum length and widths are that we are able to make from the fabric and let our Customers select their exact measurements up to the maximum we can make.  Of course, since we already have the fabric on hand (and have paid for it) we can and do discount items in The Outlet by 30%, 40%, 50% or even as much as 70% off the retail price.  And, as an added bonus, we can also usually make the drapery in The Outlet faster because we have the fabric in our warehouse.

So, getting back to ready-mades.  I know this has been a long winded explanation, but for our budget-minded Customers who have taller windows, wider windows or just odd-shaped windows and they still want very high quality, please keep an eye on THE OUTLET!  We love it when we can help a Customer save 50-60% off and still get the truly hand made custom quality drapery that they would not have gotten from a department store.  Even if your looking for blinds on a budget, roman shades or pillows make sure to check The Outlet often!

Just one word of advice, when you see drapes in the perfect size on sale in The Outlet don’t hesitate, you need to buy the fast.  Items in The Outlet move very quickly and many times when they are gone, they are gone!

Well it’s that time of year again.  We’re starting to prepare for a new photo shoot for images that will be used in our next catalog.  Every year we try to complete about three photo shoots, some years a little less, some years a little more.  For our next shoot I thought it would be fun to take you through the creative process with us.  I’ll try to leave out most of the boring and tedious logistical details and focus on how we approach each shoot creatively.  How we determine which windows to shoot, how we dress them, etc.  Tag along, I hope you will enjoy the process.

For our next shoot we spent a few weeks looking for a suitable location.  Finding the “right” location is probably the most difficult part, and arguably the most important part of any photo-shoot.  We try to never shoot int he same house more than once and each home we find will always have some specific challenges.  Are the windows too wide, too dark, too tall.  What is the style of the house and does it mix with the types of window treatments we are trying to shoot?  There is also the delicate matter of working with the Homes Owners.  We are always very professional and extremely respectful of the contents and decor of any home we shoot in but there are always challenges that arise with scheduling, timing, even whether the Owners pets will be inconvenienced by our crew.

For this shoot we are lucky.  We found a home that is not very far from our offices in Orange County.  And, the best part is that it’s a bank-owned property that is totally vacant.  Love this.  We have a couple blocks of time that we have booked and we will be in the house exclusively for eight hours at a time.  The down-side (there are always down-sides) is that the house is not 100% perfect.  It is brand new construction with large, tall windows and doors with great hardware and really high dramatic ceilings.  I think the home is probably 5,500 square feet.  Unfortunately, the back yard was never completed by the Developer before he apparently lost the home to the Bank.  So we don’t have a killer background to shoot where we would be able to hang some great outdoor drapes or shades.

The basic style of the home is more “Tuscan” with dark woods, very high ceilings, lots of iron and exposed beams.  So the idea of shooting contemporary window treatments is not going to work.  And, unlike the more bleached wood look that is pretty hot at the moment (thanks to Restoration Hardware) the woods in this home are more in the cherry wood and teak.  We can work with this.

Once we’ve selected the appropriate windows and doors that will be shooting we will next have to send out one of our Installers to measure.  The windows are a bit odd-sized and no doubt 100% custom.  Our Installers will visit the home in the next couple of days and get all of the measurements that we will need to start specifying the hardware.  The hardware has the longest lead-time of anything we sell so we will want to get that order in as soon as possible.  We’ll be looking at iron hardware for sure as it will compliment the homes interior the best.  The taller ceilings and windows will require some extra production time for the curtains as well.

Stay tuned for the next installment as we determine fabrics that we’ll be start to create or drapery and shades from.