Handy Hint
Posted By Judith on 12th March 2018
Have you got a pair of velvet curtains that have seen better days and need some TLC? If so you might find this helpful.
At the beginning of 2014 when we bought ‘Grassy Bottom’ we took down all of Gladys’s curtains before work began and stored them in black bin liners under the spare bed for safe keeping.
Gradually we’ve re-hung them and the last remaining pair were unearthed just a few weeks ago once we had finished decorating the room we’d started at Xmas.
Peter had put up a new curtain rail and I’d adjusted their length, so it was with some excitement that we hung the last curtains and stood back to admire our handy work.
Oh dear! They looked for all the world like they’d spent the last 4 years stored in a black bin liner under the spare bed!
We left them for a day or two to see if the creases would ‘drop’ out, and although there was some improvement, they were still a mess.
The perceived wisdom for getting creases out of velvet curtains is steam, but my steam iron wasn’t up to the job.
Hanging them in the shower/bath room is recommended, but although that sounds good in theory when you try to hang a large pair of heavy curtains in a place not designed for them it soon becomes clear it’s not so good in practice.
We needed some lateral thinking here and that’s when we came up with the idea of the wallpaper stripper!
We’d used it 4 years ago to strip all the wallpaper before the renovations began and we knew how well it worked, and so one snowy afternoon we steamed our velvet curtains with it.
Did it work? Yes it did. I’m not suggesting they’re in showroom condition but they’re certainly perfectly acceptable. So all in all a good afternoons work.
Though it does tend to steam the windows up!
