Living With Tapestries – Yesterday And Today!

By Author: Alla Marinow
Total Articles: 8
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Tapestries haven’t always been only for Kings and Nobility to display in castles and chateaux!

For many centuries, beginning in the 1700’s, middle-class western European homes in typical villages and cities consisted of owner-built stone structures with just one primary room used for multiple purposes. This medium size room often did triple duty, serving by day as living, commercial and entertaining space. By nightfall, this same room was transformed into a dining room with family and friends seated near the fire. At night, when the fire was stoked for the evening rest, the tapestries on the wall might get a last, lingering glance as the firelight faded and be the first seen in the early morning light. Or, for privacy, a “bedchamber” consisting of three or four tapestries might be draped to form a private chamber around the main bed for the newly - weds. Now that’s living with hand woven tapestries!

Today, one-room living is almost inconceivable. Most of us live in homes or apartments with three, five or even ten ...
... different rooms – each assigned for different uses throughout our days and nights. And yet, a wall tapestry in any of our rooms will often make them a favorite place to be in. That’s partly because a tapestry wall hanging in, say, your dining room, warms up the ambient energy in the room like an old friend who stays for dinner. Or hang a tapestry in your entryway, and you’ll discover how nice it is to have such a warm reception when you come home and step inside on a cold, rainy evening. And a soft morning light on your wall hanging tapestry goes real well with your coffee!

So tapestries can have a major role in contemporary décor, especially once they’re recognized for the way they transform a room like nothing else can! There’s a wall hanging tapestry to set the scene of daily living for almost every room, from hall to staircase, from our morning room to our evening dining room. And they not only delight us with their vibrant colors and grand stories of other times and places, they also soften and dampen the sharp sounds in our room with their added acoustic qualities.

Today’s top designers, home owners and residential apartment dwellers are turning a modern eye to the unique blending of historical tapestries décor with contemporary décor. They’re recognizing how tapestries introduce a rarely found element – dare we use the word “grandeur”- to our rooms and life, whether we live with one wall tapestry in one room, or several tapestries in several rooms! Indeed, in these times of accelerated change, we may turn even more to the enduring Classics. Whether they’re Medieval, French pastoral or Italian ornate designs, hand woven or Jacquard woven, European tapestries never go out of style –that’s what makes them classics!