Custom Fabric Decor for Homes in Dighton, MA

Old Sash and New Glass in the Same Room

Dighton’s older houses have grown over the years. Along Main Street and Somerset Avenue, many farmhouses and capes have had additions, and it is common to find modern glass set right beside original nineteenth-century sash in a single room. That mix is the reason custom fabric decor in Dighton, MA is so useful: when two windows in one room cannot be dressed the same way, fabric on the furniture is what pulls the room back together.

The old sash is narrow, often with wavy glass and deep trim. The new glass may be a wide picture window, a set of French doors or a slider out to the yard. On the river lots by the Taunton River, the addition is usually where the big view is. The original part of the house stays cosy and a little dim, while the new part is bright, and the fabric has to suit both.

• Pillows, duvet covers and some upholstery, chosen with the window cloth
• Ideas for rooms where old and new windows meet
• Bolts and swatches to handle at our Swansea store

What We Can Make for You

Pillows that bridge two eras

One cloth on the sofa that answers both the old sash curtains and the new glass panels. It is often the simplest fix in a room that grew in stages.

Covers for farmhouse bedrooms

Old bedrooms with small windows and slanting ceilings. The bed cover carries the colour the windows cannot.

Valances for narrow sash

A short valance or a slim side panel suits an old window without hiding its trim, and gives the room’s fabric a home at the glass.

Panels for the new glass

Full-length drapery for the wide windows and doors in an addition, made to the true width of the opening.

Custom drapes in Dighton

Richer cloth for the old rooms

Velvets and heavier weaves suit the low, older rooms of a farmhouse, especially by a hearth in the evening.

A share of upholstery

Some upholstery is on offer too, its cloth picked to suit the windows. We like to hear about a piece first, so nobody is disappointed.

Custom Fabric Decor in Dighton, MA Where Two Eras Meet

Rooms with a mix of old and new windows are the most common challenge we see in custom fabric decor in Dighton, MA. A typical example: the original farmhouse kitchen, with a pair of tall, narrow sash windows over the sink, has been opened into a family room addition with a wide picture window and a slider. Standing in the middle, you can see both. The sash needs something slim that respects its trim. The new glass needs something wide and simple. Put a matching treatment on both and one of them will look wrong.

The answer is usually to use one fabric in two different forms, or two related fabrics, and let the soft furnishings make the link. A small valance or a single side panel on the old sash, and full panels on the new glass, both in the same cloth, read as one decision. Pillows on the family room sofa and a cushion on a kitchen bench in that cloth, or in a solid taken from it, carry the colour across the seam between the old house and the new.

Making the old part feel as considered as the new

Additions tend to get the attention. They are bright, the paint is fresh and the windows are big, and it is easy to spend the whole budget there. The original rooms, with their small windows and low ceilings, can end up feeling like an afterthought. Fabric decor is a good way to give them their share.

In an old parlour or front room, a richer cloth works well: a velvet, a heavy woven, a deep plaid or a print with some age to its colours. The light is lower, so these fabrics read as warm rather than dark, especially in the evening. A pair of pillows on a settee and a cover on a wing chair, if it is upholstery we can take on, make the old room an inviting place to sit rather than a passage to the new one. A lamp, a stack of books and a well-dressed chair by the old window can turn the quietest corner of the house into the one everybody heads for on a winter evening.

Colour that suits both kinds of light

The bright addition and the dimmer original rooms light fabric very differently. A cloth that looks rich and deep in the old parlour can look heavy in a sunny addition, and a pale cloth that looks fresh in the addition can look grey in the old room. If one fabric must work in both, a mid-tone usually travels best: a soft green, a warm grey, an oatmeal or a faded blue.

Another approach is to use the same colour family at different strengths. The addition takes the lighter version on its large panels and sofa pillows. The original room takes a deeper shade of the same colour on its valance and chair. Walking from one to the other, the change feels natural rather than abrupt.

Texture to bridge old wood and new walls

The original part of a Dighton farmhouse often has wide pine floors, beaded trim and plaster walls with a little movement in them. The addition may have smooth walls, crisp trim and newer flooring. Fabric texture can soften that contrast. A linen with a visible weave, a woven with a gentle slub or a cotton with a washed finish looks at home against old wood and takes the edge off new drywall. Very shiny or very smooth cloths tend to emphasise the difference instead.

Farmhouses and Capes along Main Street

The farmhouses along Main Street usually have their main rooms at the front, with tall, narrow sash and generous trim, and a kitchen at the back that has often been extended. Upstairs, the bedrooms are a mix of full-height rooms in the main block and smaller rooms under the roof in an ell or a later wing.

Those front rooms suit a fuller drapery if the trim allows, or a Roman shade inside the frame if the trim is too good to cover. The Roman shades in Dighton page goes into that choice. With the window settled, the sofa and chairs take on the lead fabric or a companion, and the room comes together.

The capes along Somerset Avenue are smaller and simpler, but many have the same story of a later addition at the back. In a cape, the addition is often a family room or a bigger kitchen, and the downstairs flows from the old front room to the new space. Repeating a fabric along that route, on a front room pillow, a dining bench cushion and the family room sofa, ties the house together.

Bedrooms under the roof

Upstairs in the older houses, the bedrooms under the roof have sloping ceilings and small windows, sometimes only one per room. A long drape will not fit, so the window often takes a short curtain, a valance or a shade. In those rooms the bed is the main fabric, and a duvet cover sets the mood. A lighter colour helps a small, sloping room feel bigger, while a few pillows in a stronger print give it character.

Where an addition has brought a new main bedroom with modern windows, the bed can take a larger pattern and the windows full drapes. Using a related fabric in the older bedrooms keeps the upstairs feeling like one house. A guest room in the old wing might wear the same print as the new main bedroom, only on its pillows, with a plain cover in one of the print’s colours. The hall between them then reads as a single floor, even though the windows on either side of it were made a century or more apart, and a visitor walking from one room to the next notices the link without being able to say quite why.

River Lots on the Taunton River

On the river lots, the addition is usually built to look at the water, with large glass facing the Taunton River. Those rooms get strong reflected light for much of the day, and the original house behind them may get very little.

For the river rooms, keep the window fabric light and the view clear: panels that stack back to the sides, or a simple shade that rolls away. The pillows and throws then supply the room’s colour, and they should be in cloths that handle bright light well. Blues, greys and greens from the river, with one warmer accent, suit these rooms. The deeper, richer colours are better kept for the old rooms at the back, where the light is softer and the fabric will hold its depth for longer. On a grey winter day, when the river turns the colour of slate, a pair of rust or ochre pillows in the bright room keeps it from feeling cold, and the same warm colour picked up on a valance in the old kitchen links the two halves of the house across the seasons.

How We Work with You

You hear from us at every stage until the job is done. An order usually runs like this.

1. Book a free quote with the call button or the form, and tell us about the room, especially if it mixes old and new windows.
2. We arrange measuring in your home. A specialist measures each window, old sash and new glass alike, and looks at the light in each part of the room.
3. At the showroom, you choose the cloth for each window form and for the pillows, covers and any upholstery, side by side.
4. Your quote lists every piece separately, so you can see what is being made for each part of the room.
5. Everything is made from the same choices. Our team installs the window treatments and stays in touch until all is right.

The step down into the addition

Many additions in Dighton sit a step or two lower or higher than the old floor, with a wide opening where an outside wall used to be. That opening frames a view from one era into the other, and it is worth planning what you see through it. A sofa in the addition, seen from the old kitchen, is a natural place for the pillows that carry the shared colour. A chair in the old room, seen from the addition, can answer it.

Where the opening is wide enough, some owners treat the two spaces as one room and some keep them distinct. Either works. If they read as one, use the same lead fabric on both sides. If they read as two, let each have its own fabric but share a colour, so the eye still finds a thread between them.

Cloth for hard-working rooms

The farmhouse kitchen and the family room beside it are where the household lives. Cushions there are leant on, sat on and occasionally slept on, and they meet muddy paws and sticky fingers. A firm, close weave in a colour that forgives a mark, with covers that unzip for cleaning, is worth more in those rooms than the most beautiful delicate silk. Bed covers need to survive the wash week after week. The panels and valances at the windows are barely touched, so that is the place for the finer cloth you have fallen for. We will steer you honestly on which goes where.

What we make, and the upholstery question

Pillows come in your choice of fabric, size, shape and edge detail, in whatever number suits each settee, bench or bed. Bed covers can share the drapery fabric, use a companion print or stay plain and leave the pattern to the cushions.

Some upholstery is part of what we take on, always in a cloth linked to the room’s windows. An old farmhouse tends to come with old chairs, each one its own case, so a description or a photo brought to Swansea is the right first step. After that, we can tell you yes or no with confidence, and custom fabric decor in Dighton, MA can be planned around the answer.

A Family Store Across the River

Window Works opened in Swansea in 1988 and the second generation of the family runs it today. For over 37 years it has worked in homes across Dighton, the SouthCoast and the Rhode Island East Bay, from antique sash to brand-new additions.

• Window treatment specialists who are used to rooms that grew in stages
• Measuring in your home, window by window
• Installation by our own team
• Kept up to date by us until the job is finished
• Warranties offered on the products we sell

More for Dighton homes

Our Dighton window treatments page lists all we do in town, and the custom fabric decor page sets out the whole range of cushions, bed covers and upholstery.

See Old and New Cloths Together

At the Swansea showroom you can lay the valance cloth for an old sash beside the panel cloth for the new glass, then add the pillow fabric and see how the three sit together. Feel the weight of each one and compare them in daylight.

Bring a photo of the room, ideally showing both the old and new windows, and our specialists will help you find a combination that bridges them.

Visit the showroom

Your Next Step

A free quote gets custom fabric decor in Dighton, MA moving. The call button puts you through to the Swansea store, where we can talk over the rooms, book measuring in your home or answer questions about installation. The form works too, and we will come back to you. If the cloth is where you want to begin, the showroom is a short run down the road, with a map on the contact page. Window Works is rated 5.0 on Google.