suitable blackout lining

[jocelyn plummer]

I am trying to find a decent blackout fabric with which to line my linen bedroom curtains. I hate that plasticy white stuff!
Unfortunately there is a street light immediately opposite our main bedroom window. It has not been working recently due to a power failure that we had about a month ago> I'm just dreading the day when the Council finally repair it!

Any ideas?

 

[Carol]

I too hate the plasticky stuff and 'hid' it between the fabric and a normal lining. I can still feel it and I know it's there but I can't actually see it. And it formed an extra layer of insulation on a single glazed window. Bought at an ordinary fabric shop.
But they are nothing like as lovely as Nigel's!

 

[Nigel Watts]

Scroll down to the bottom of the page in this link:

http://www.merrick-day.com/acatalog/Merrick___Day_100__cotton_lining__17.html

Not tried this myself. You try a sample I guess.

I too have a streetlight just outside my bedroom window and may incorporate something like this when I remake the bedroom curtains. As a child I slept in a bedroom which was very dark and very quiet and hated any light or noise but over the years living in London I have got used to sleeping with much more ambient noise and light.

However I still get woken up at around 4.30 or 5.00 am most Sunday mornings as the revelers from some nightclub in nearby Holloway Road return to their cars parked in our street talking loudly, revving up their engines and switching on their booming car stereos. Soundproof curtain lining would be nice.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Joss - couldn't you invite Penners for tea and tell him to bring his bow and arrow, take that streetlamp out?

Here's another link to some supposedly soft blackout lining: http://www.terrysfabrics.co.uk/prod/curtain-fabrics/lining-interlinings/54-wide-curtain-lining-cream

I remember looking at very soft blackout lining in my local curtain shop so it does exist.

Fascinating to see the window construction in St Petersburg: every window had a window behind it. (With about a foot of wall between) So, to open the window you would open both layers. I would imagine this provides much needed insulation when the temperature drops to -25.We weren't troubled by noise, despite being on a busy road, although the White Nights make it impossible to sleep after the utter blackness at BC.

There are very few 19th C sashes remaining, but no white plastic anywhere. Where plastic's used, they prefer dark brown, which looks better in the context of their painted houses.

 

[jocelyn plummer]

Thank you Nigel and Joce, I will check those two sites.

There are enough power cuts around here to keep that street lamp off for 4 weeks every so often, but allowing Penners loose with a bow and arrow might compromise the caged homing pigeons that are kept in the garden opposite as well :roll: :wink: :wink:

 

[vicky whitworth]

In our village a few years ago the Council installed a street light outside some of the cottages and the residents took it in turns to put a ladder up and paint the light black. The Council would come out and replace it, and up they would go and paint it black again. Eventually the council removed the whole light - job done!

We are lobbying the same council to turn all our village lights off after midnight to save energy and money. So far they have done one street but have far too many excuses why they can't do the rest. But in these cash strapped days maybe they may be keener.

That plasticky stuff is horrid. I used it, and always hated it and have now decided to abandon it and make new curtains. But we're lucky as we live where there's no street light.

 

[jocelyn plummer]

Quite by chance I have some black gloss left over :roll:

Yes, our Town Council is muttering about turning some of the side street lights out at midnight, they always used to. But everything is too difficult for our local TC

 

[Jill]

Do as I do, sleep with your head under the quilt - complete blackout!

 

[wobs]

Mrs Wobs is currently making new curtains, and using normal blackout lining. Seems fine to me.

However, the great thing about it is that you can use any left over for oil painting. Such as......

 

[Penners]

Joss - couldn't you invite Penners for tea and tell him to bring his bow and arrow, take that streetlamp out?

Nah - never been much of a Robin Hood. But hand me a .22 air rifle.....

Joss - do you not think that perhaps you might need to compromise your views on blackout lining? Saying that you want to protect yourself from the street-light, but that you hate the stuff... well, it seems to me like wanting to knock in a nail but saying that you hate hammers.

Or are we entering Mars and Venus territory here? :wink:

 

[jocelyn plummer]

Tee heee, I'd actually really rather have the good old fashioned wartime black out lining, at least it was cotton-- I think-- but, excepting the one I have just found on the Terry's site which is at least soft, most of the wretched stuff is an unforgiving piece of plastic!