The 900 Inch Cafe Curtain
Earlier this year, a project team reached out for help with sheer draperies for a restaurant design in a new mixed use development in Culver City. The scope had some pretty unique asks and required us to come up with custom one-off solutions which included hardware fabrication and a sheer cafe curtain with a continuous run of over 900 inches.
The approximately 900 inch cafe curtain (straight ahead) flanked by a second, higher linen sheer drapery.
One of the areas that we thrive in at Field Work Design & Craft is the unknown and never-before done ie. coming up with truly unique solutions to challenges that many in the custom window treatment business may be too intimidated to tackle, or simply may not have the technical means or ability to solve. With our ability to control all aspects of production of our projects, from material sourcing, fabric sewing, hardware fabrication, and installation all under one roof…there is not a lot we are unable to do.
In the case of this new Spanish restaurant in a massive mixed-use development on the east end of Culver City, the building owner was adamant that drapery hardware could not be mounted into the brand new aluminum mullions framing up massive walls of light in their highly designed restaurant space. That meant we had to come up with a solution to mount very wide draperies and cafe curtains in a space without using traditional fasteners, screws, anchors or bolts.
The solution was to custom fabricate “clamps” that could slide over the vertical mullions with cupped hooks welded to the front to carry 18 foot sections of steel tube we used for the drapery rods. We were able to tighten these clamps down securely over each vertical mullion, and the end result was walls of windows delicately adorned with sheer faux linen draperies that provided just the right amount of privacy to a busy La Cienega Blvd to the east and to the courtyard of the mixed use development to the north and west.
Admittedly, sewing and installing a continuous 900 inch wide cafe curtain was not the easiest route to take, the visual impact has no comparison. After seeing the end result, we could not imagine having taken the easy way out and breaking this up into smaller, interrupted individual curtains. The high-ceiling, light-filled space is only enhanced by the long runs of lightly flowing delicate sheer draperies.
Custom clamps fabricated to slip over aluminum mullions and hold drapery hardware.
It is not uncommon for us to take on projects that require significant levels of custom hardware fabrication to complete, and in this case, we learned more along the way that only increase our skill set for future projects. We look forward to more projects that allow us to think critically and come up with custom one-off solutions to architectural and interior design challenges.
Sheer faux linen drapery with custom hardware looking out onto La Cienega Blvd in Los Angeles.