Formal Rooms and Long Glass in Barrington
Barrington houses tend to fall into two camps, and custom fabric decor in Barrington, RI has to suit both. Along Rumstick Road and Nayatt Road you find center-hall colonials with a formal parlour on one side of the hall and a dining room on the other, rooms where drapery is expected rather than optional. Close by sit mid-century moderns with long runs of glass and low sills, many of them looking out over the Barrington River.
In the colonials, the drapes come first and the pillows and bedding take their cue from them. In the mid-century houses, the glass is so wide that whatever hangs beside it becomes the main fabric in the room. Either way, the window decides the tone and everything soft in the room is planned to answer it.
- Throw pillows, duvet covers and some upholstery
- Planned with the drapes or shades, never as an afterthought
- Bolts and cuttings to handle at our Swansea showroom
Made to Answer Your Windows
Settee and sofa pillows
Made from the drapery cloth itself, or from a second fabric that borrows one of its shades, so the seating and the window read as a pair.
Main bedroom bedding
A duvet cover worked out at the same time as the bedroom drapes, matching them outright or sitting quietly beside them.
Upholstery, case by case
Some upholstery is part of what we do, always tied back to the window fabric. Ring us about the piece first and we will be straight about whether it fits.
Custom Fabric Decor in Barrington, RI, Room by Room
A colonial and a mid-century house treat the same bolt of cloth in opposite ways. Here is how we approach custom fabric decor in Barrington, RI for the rooms we are asked about most, starting at the front door.
The center hall and the two rooms either side
Stand in the front hall of a center-hall colonial and you can usually see into both the parlour and the dining room at once. That is worth keeping in mind. The two rooms do not need to match, but they are seen together every time someone walks in, so their fabrics ought to get along.
One tidy way to handle it is to give each room its own drapery and let the pillows cross the hall. The parlour drapes might be a stripe in two colours, the dining room drapes a plain in one of those colours, and the pillows on the parlour settee pick up the dining room plain. From the hall, the eye moves from left to right without a jolt.
Formal parlours where drapery leads
In a formal parlour, full-length drapes are part of how the room was always meant to look, and they cover a great deal of wall. That makes them the anchor. Pillows then do one of three jobs: they repeat the drapery cloth exactly, they lift a single colour out of it, or they bring in a texture that contrasts with it, such as velvet next to linen.
Colonial parlours are often symmetrical, with a window either side of the fireplace or a matched pair on the front wall. Pillows set out in pairs on a sofa, or one each on two matching armchairs, echo that balance. It is a small touch, and it is the kind of finish that makes a formal room look intended.
Dining rooms lit for the evening
Dining rooms in these colonials are where fabric is usually at its richest: heavier drapes, sometimes a valance, and colours chosen to glow under lamplight rather than daylight. Fabric decor here works best with a light hand. Two pillows on a window bench or a host chair, in the drapery cloth, carry the colour across the table without crowding the room.
Because these rooms are used mostly after dark, it is worth judging the fabrics under warm light as well as at midday. A red that looks bright at noon can turn almost brown by lamplight, and a grey can go cold. A photo of the dining room taken in the evening is a useful thing to bring when you come to choose, so you can picture the change before you commit.
Mid-century living rooms with long runs of glass
The mid-century moderns are a different exercise altogether. A wall of glass with a low sill means the furniture often sits close to the window, sometimes with the back of the sofa facing outward. The pillows on that sofa sit right in the line of the glass, so they are seen against the panels or shades every time you look out at the yard or the water.
That makes coordination easy to get right and just as easy to get wrong. A pillow cloth identical to the panels can vanish against them from across the room. A deeper or lighter tone from the same colour family usually reads better: if the panels running along the glass are a pale oatmeal, pillows in a toasted brown or a muted rust give the sofa an outline while still belonging to the window.
Mid-century houses also tend to suit a tighter palette and bolder shapes than a colonial. A long, low sofa might carry three pillows rather than five, in solid colours with crisp edges, letting the grain of the wood and the view do the rest.
Low sills and the afternoon sun
Those low sills let sunlight fall straight across seat cushions and pillows for hours at a time. Strong sun is hard on many dyes, and some colours fade far faster than others. Before you settle on a pillow cloth for a sofa that sits in full light, we will tell you frankly how it is likely to cope and suggest a sturdier alternative in a similar shade if it will not.
Bedrooms that look over the Barrington River
Bedrooms facing the river catch bright light bounced off the water, especially early in the day. It is beautiful light, and it is unkind to colour, so the duvet cover and the bedroom drapes are best chosen together, under the same light.
For a room like this, many households pick a lined drape that closes fully for sleep and a lighter-weight cover from the same palette, so the bed does not look heavy against the bright glass by day. If you would rather the bed be the strong piece, the cover can carry the pattern and the drapes keep to a plain.
Ready to Get Started? Book Your Free Quote
Call the Swansea store for a free quote, or come and see the samples in person.
How Your Fabric Order Comes Together
Every order is handled by the same small team, and we keep you posted at each turn until the work is finished. Most Barrington projects follow this path.
- Use the call button or the form to tell us which rooms are on your mind, and we set up a free quote.
- We talk through those rooms with you: who uses them, where the sun falls, which furniture stays and any drapery already hanging.
- At the showroom you hold pillow and bedding cloths up against the window fabric and narrow down the choices.
- We write out exactly what is being made for each room, so there are no surprises later.
- Your quote covers the room as a whole, which lets you decide what to order now and what can wait.
- We take measurements at the house, the pieces are made from the agreed fabrics, and our installers hang everything that belongs at the windows.
Letting one fabric set the room
Every room needs one cloth in charge. In most Barrington rooms that is the drapery, simply because it covers the most ground. Once it is chosen, the rest falls into place: a large print pairs naturally with a small print or a plain drawn from its colours, while a plain at the window leaves space for a livelier pattern on the pillows.
Texture counts as much as colour. Linen at the window beside a velvet pillow, or a smooth cotton next to a nubbly weave, gives a room depth even when every fabric sits in the same narrow band of colour. That approach suits the mid-century houses particularly well, where a restrained palette is often the point.
Fabric finishing
Finishing is what makes a pillow look made for its room rather than picked up on the way home. It covers how the edge of each pillow is finished, whether a motif is centred on the face, and whether a stripe runs in the same direction as the stripe in the drapes. Those details get noticed in a formal parlour, so we settle them with you before any cutting begins.
Duvet covers that stand up to the wash
A duvet cover goes through the wash far more often than a drape ever will, so the cloth has to earn its place on the bed as well as look the part. Some handsome drapery fabrics are simply not built for regular laundering. Where that is the case, we suggest a more practical cloth in a matching colour for the cover and keep the drapery fabric for the pillows on top.
Upholstery
Upholstery is part of what we take on, in a limited way, always chosen around the fabric at your windows. We would rather not list particular furniture here, because what is possible depends on the item. Tell us about it on the phone, or show us a photo at the showroom, and you will get a plain answer.
Fabrics in Your Hands
A fabric picked on a screen rarely turns up looking the way you pictured it. The colour shifts, the pattern is bigger or smaller than it seemed, and the weight is a mystery. At the Swansea showroom, just over the state line from Barrington, you can drape a pillow cloth over a drapery cloth, see how a bedding fabric sits next to the bedroom drape, and take as long as you need.
Bring something from the room if you can: a throw pillow, a colour card from the paint, or a photo of the windows in daylight. If your drapes are already hanging and all you need are pillows or a duvet cover to go with them, a snipped corner or a sharp photo of the drapery lets us match to it.
Doing the house in stages
Many Barrington projects begin with the formal rooms at the front of a colonial and reach the bedrooms a year or two later. That works well as long as the first rooms are planned with the rest of the house in view. We keep a record of what you chose, so when you return for the main bedroom, the new fabrics can be picked to sit comfortably with the ones downstairs.
In a mid-century house, the open plan often means the living area, the dining corner and a den are all seen as one space through the glass. There it makes sense to choose fabrics for all three together, even if only some of them are made straight away.
Upstairs in a center-hall colonial
The bedrooms of a center-hall colonial usually line up along an upper hall, each with a pair of windows on the front or back wall. They are less formal than the rooms below, which gives you more freedom. A guest room might take a cheerful print on the duvet cover with plain curtains, while a child’s room can carry a pattern on a few pillows that is easy to change as they grow.
What ties the floor together is a thread of colour. If every bedroom shares one shade somewhere in its fabrics, perhaps a soft blue in a stripe here and a check there, the upstairs hall feels calm even though each room has its own character. We can help you choose that thread at the start, so later rooms slot in without a rethink.
Window treatments to go with the decor
Fabric decor works best when the window treatment is part of the same plan. Our custom drapes in Barrington page covers the drapery side, and Roman shades for Barrington homes suit smaller windows where a full drape would crowd things. Everything we offer in town is gathered on our Barrington window treatments page, and the whole range of fabric work sits on the main custom fabric decor page.
Care that keeps pillows looking new
Plump pillows and turn them over now and then so one face does not take all the sun from a low-silled window. On a sofa in strong light, rotating pillows between the sofa and a chair across the room spreads the wear. Launder a duvet cover the way its cloth allows, and we will explain how when you choose it. If something spills or snags and you are unsure what to do, call us before trying a fix.
Why Barrington Chooses Window Works
Window Works is a family store, opened in Swansea in 1988 and now run by the second generation. For over 37 years it has helped houses across the SouthCoast of Massachusetts and the Rhode Island East Bay get windows, and whole rooms, that suit them. Choosing custom fabric decor in Barrington, RI from us means one team plans the drapes, the pillows and the bedding together.
- Window treatment specialists with long experience of colonial and mid-century rooms
- We measure at your house, and our own team does the installing
- You hear from us at every stage, right through to the finish
- Warranties are offered on the products we sell
Questions from Barrington
Can the pillows in my parlour pick up the dining room drapes across the hall?
Yes. Many center-hall colonials use the pillows to link the two front rooms. We can make them in the dining room cloth, or in a fabric that sits between the two.
My sofa backs onto a long window. What should I look for in a pillow fabric?
Pillows in full sun need a cloth and a colour that can take it. We will tell you which of your favourites will cope with strong light and which belong in a shadier room.
Can a duvet cover go with my bedroom drapes without matching them exactly?
Yes. Plenty of people prefer a cover from the same palette, or a plain one with pillows that carry the drapery pattern. We will lay both options out so you can compare.
What upholstery do you take on?
Some upholstery, tied to the fabric in the room. Describe the item when you ring and we will tell you honestly whether it is one for us.
How do I find out what it will cost?
Ask for a free quote with the call button or the form, and mention the rooms and pieces you are thinking about.
Your Next Step
Start with the call button: ask for a free quote on custom fabric decor in Barrington, RI, book a time for us to measure the windows at the house, or ask about having the matching drapes installed. If you prefer, leave your details on the form and we will be in touch. To begin with the fabrics themselves, the contact page has directions to the showroom. Google reviewers rate Window Works 5.0.