As interior decorator Emma Burns has memorably remarked, if windows are the eyes of a room, pelmets are the mascara, and since we all know the effect a good mascara can have on a face, it's certainly worth considering the decorative potential of a pelmet. If they just seem a bit too granny-ish for you, think again! While we take delight in a traditional chintzy pelmet, there are plenty of styles that can work for contemporary houses, smart cottages and playful, youthful interiors.
The Australian designer Cameron Kimber, whose house in New South Wales is packed with pelmets, says it's best to use them “to add height to windows and soften a room. To me, they hint at luxury and give a very finished feel.” In general, pelmets work best in rooms with high ceilings and on vertical windows, though if you have a country cottage, they can be quite charming on a lower, more horizontal window as well.
Soft pelmets
Generally made from the same fabric as the curtains, this is a particularly traditional, English country house style. We love the narrow frills of the pelmet in an Oxfordshire house by Chester Jones and his son Toby (below right), done out in Claremont’s ‘Daisy’ print fabric. In Cameron Kimber's Australian house (above), a wider pelmet in "Fern Stripe" by Jean Monro softens the architectural panelling of the room. A bedroom in the eaves of Elizabeth Hay's Devon cottage (below left) shows that a pelmet can add a bit of oomph to a cottage bedroom with a low ceiling.
Box pelmets
More formal in style and easier to incorporate into a contemporary environment, a box pelmet consists of a panel of wood, or more likely MDF, covered in fabric. Philip Hooper includes this style in his recommendations for either a contemporary look in curtains. “Stick to the slim, ‘tailored’ look and, if using a pelmet, keep it as a flat, upholstered box with an interesting silhouette to the bottom line, maybe trimmed in a braid to match the curtains.” Veere Grenney often employs a box pelmet in his projects, which walk a clever line between contemporary and traditional. In his Norfolk project above, curtains in his own ‘Tabitha’ linen for Schumacher frame an internal window.
For a more playful look, try contrasting the pelmet with the curtain fabric, as Christopher Howe has done in his Bray project, below, where the pelmet, covered in Howe’s ‘Mr Men’ linen, has been contrasted with curtains made from antique mangle cloth. Behind the mangle cloth, a panel of ‘Mr Men’ linen peeks out, which ties the look together (and it also appears in a different scale on the wallpaper).
Decorative shaped pelmets
For a more decorative pelmet, you could either have a bespoke shape made from MDF and covered in fabric, as Beata Heuman has done in a London project (below left). Simple white linen curtains are enlivened by a crimson decorative pelmet with swirls of white trim. Alternatively, a bespoke painted pelmet can add some serious glamour to a scheme. Edward Bulmer designed the tulip-wood pelmets in the bedroom at his country house to complement the eighteenth-century Chinese wallpaper and four-poster bed. If you're looking for a similar, aesthetic, Jali has smart, customisable MDF pelmets from £50.
