Student Day at Denver Design District

Matt Goettge, General Manager for Schumacher Showroom at Denver Design District had a great idea for student day. Matt asked Kirk Axelson of Precision Draperies Education to speak with the students about his knowledge of drapery workroom related issues. Kirk discussed issues associated with difficult fabrics, how to identify a difficult fabric, and which fabrics work best for certain treatments. Kirk stressed how important it was to find a drapery workroom that meets the Window Coverings Association of America (WCAA) or Workroom Association of America (WAA) guidelines. Kirk also shared his story of entering the industry by learning the business from his parents, running his own workroom, publishing 3 books for the soft home furnishing products industry and his educational products offered through Precision Draperies Education.

Every showroom at Denver Design District had great information for the students. Some showrooms placed fabric memo for the students to take, and others gave away free stuff for the students to gain knowledge about becoming an interior designer.

Students information

Kirk promised the following information. Feel free to share with other students any time. Please sign up to receive our free newsletter, by clicking on this link.

Submitting drawings to a drapery workroom

There are a few ways to submit drawings to a drapery workroom. One of the most common ways is on a spec sheet, similar to the image below. As seen below, the designer has drawn out details of the treatment, along with window spec's, and fabric specifications. Take note how the designer used numbers for window placement (on this project the designer had given a floor plan) and letters for fabric indications. For clarity, the designer attached samples of the fabric, along with manufacturer's name, fabric width and repeat information. This was a typical work order I received at Precision Draperies Inc. On this type of work order the drapery workroom will assist you in figuring out lengths of draperies but usually the workroom will charge more as the liability for an error falls on the workroom.

Another type of workorder is a pre-defined work order in which you fill out all the specifications. Depending on the drapery workroom, they may request you use one of their forms. This type of an order usually falls within the workroom's price list. This means you are taking on the liability if there is an error in the specifications.

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Measuring the window spec's

When measuring windows, you want all the specs on that window so that you can draw the window to scale when designing your treatments. As you can see in the image below the installer has measured every spec on that window, but in this case he/she forgot the angle of window. This didn't prove to be a problem because the designer needed to go back out to the site again. The window trim was being replaced with new trim and final measurements were necessary to incorporate the new trim. A service we offer at Precision Draperies is to take a picture of the window along with the window specs and place it in a PDF. This PDF helps further down the road when it comes time to refresh everyone's mind of what the room looks like.

Measuring for hard coverings

When measuring for hard coverings, i.e. Duettes, mini blinds, etc, it helps to write those on another work order similar to the one below, if you notice the columns the installer puts information related to type of blind, width, length, whether it's a inside mt, and the controls. This allows clarity and provides ease of ordering from the manufacturer.

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Designing a treatment idea

A digital camera plays a key role in designing a treatment. Take a picture of the window and use 3rd party software i.e. Minutes Matter, Dream Drape, or 3dream.net net to help render out a design. If you are good at Adobe Illustrator, you can use that as well. In this case I used Adobe Illustrator.

On this job, the designer and the client wanted swags. The client did not want swags like her mother had in her home; she wanted something more stylish. We used the photo of the client's window, incorporated the designer's ideas for swags, and gave the client a handy visual. After 3 different designs we finally settled on a design that looked really cool.

Here is our first attempt:

Our second attempt:

Our final version:

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Along in the same room, just to the left of this window is a sink. We considered the following design styles:

Our first attempt:

Our final version:

Stay tune for the complete lesson on how to make this open swag treatment.

That does it for Student Day at Schumacher's showroom in Denver Design District!

I enjoyed our time together,

Kirk Axelson
Precision Draperies Education®

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