Disclaimer

Silly me!

I wrote the previous post in response to an email I received from a Southern woman who had chanced upon my blog, and wanted more detailed information about portières than I had supplied. I decided to write my response in the form of a blog entry....she's not the first person to have googled "portière" and ended up here, and presumably won't be the last. For purposes of economy and clarity, I concentrated on the details of construction, glossing over the checkered history of its creation.

Did this abridgement slip past my eagle-eyed brother-in-law? No way.

So, I'm posting the following disclaimer:

For "I" in the part about the sewing, read "my little sister, Leslie, who can sew circles around me blindfolded, with both hands tied around her back." For "I" in the part about the doorstop, read "my handy friend with tools, Brian." For "I" in the part about the hacksaw, read "my son." For "I" in the part about mislaying the bracket, read "I." For a picture of Leslie sewing the portière, see my post of 11/24/06.

Come to think of it, my friends Priya and Donna, as well as Donna's Aunt Eldora (may she rest in peace), also struggled with some of the measuring, pinning, cutting, and sewing of the portière.

An historic home like mine takes you over in the best possible way. I don't think of myself as "owning" the Emory House, but rather of being its steward. In my very first blog post, I declare my resolution to make a portière. In the third, I detail the assistance of my reclusive neighbor Ken in repairing my stairwell. Living in this house has helped me to forge connections with the past, present, and future. This roof has united my poet friends, my book club friends, my neighbors, my relatives, my childhood friends, my workmates.

I use my front door a dozen times a day. I never look at the portière without thinking of Leslie, Bill, Brian, Ali, Priya, Donna, and Eldora. I never sit on my glider without thinking of all the people with whom I've shared it. I never go to bed without a passing thought of all the people who have lived in, slept in, possibly died in that room. That's the gift, and also the curse, of history.

Portière Revisited

It seems there are others in the blogosphere with some of the same domestic concerns as mine. For those lucky owners of Victorian money pits interested in the subject of portières, here's an update:

I've been trying since I bought the Emory House to improve its thermal efficiency. The front double doors are a major source of heat loss in winter, especially if the fireplace in the library is drawing a draft. The three-story foyer becomes a wind tunnel...brrr!

Possible improvements would include:

Repairing the doors, jambs, casings, and/or threshhold.
Weatherstripping the doors.
Adding a set of storm doors to the outside.
Adding a portière to the inside.

Weatherstripping was easy and cheap enough, so I did that. Repairing the doors is high on my to-do list, but would involve hiring a carpenter who is sensitive to historical properties. Ditto the storms.

The portière involved sewing, almost as scary and mysterious to me as using power tools. Also required an outlay of a bit of money. But it seemed like a good investment, so I attempted to make it.

I'm not the only person in this neighborhood with a portière, but I believe I'm the only one with a genuine hinged rod to hold it up. Most portière rods are like shower curtain rods: spring-tension poles that fit across the jambs. That's fine for a doorway with no door. But less fine for your front door, which presumably opens inward. A portière hanging across the opening would be a pain in the ass, preventing the door from being opened. What's needed is a rod attached to the door itself, so that the portière moves with the door.

The only company I know of which makes these functional rods is Copes in the U.K. They don't sell at retail, however. Their web site lists companies that do, on the other hand, with links to those who have web sites.

Copes does not quote prices, allowing retailers to charge whatever the market will bear. I bought my rods (one for each of the double doors) from Grace Brown Interiors in Congleton, Cheshire, England. That's about 50 miles outside of Liverpool, not too convenient for New Englanders, even those happen to pass through London occasionally. GB Interiors does a thriving web-based mail-order business, however. I paid approximately $50 apiece for two bronze rods.

The Copes portière rods are hinged. One bracket fastens to the jamb and is stationary. The other, hinged bracket fastens to the door itself and raises one end of the rod slightly as the door opens, lifting the portière with it. This setup allows you to puddle the curtain on the floor for maximum draft prevention.

I bought a lovely piece of deep purple and black brocade which drapes beautifully. With it I made a set of portières, edging them with long black fringe. I whipstitched the rings which come with the rods directly onto the fabric. Seven rings slip onto one side of the hinged bracket, and three on the other.

I had to shorten the rods by cutting them with a hacksaw. (If I can do that, anyone can.) The rod on the inactive door comes almost to the edge of the door. (If it stuck out, it would get in the way of the active door.) The rod on the active door projects past the edge, so that the portière overlaps and covers the middle edge between the two doors.

I also had to screw a doorstop into the floor to prevent the active door from opening all the way. (The rod projects over and beyond the edge of the door and would gouge the plaster beneath the floating staircase.)

I only hung one side because I've mislaid one stationary bracket. Now all I have to do to finish this project is clean my whole house, including cellar, in hopes that the missing bracket will show up.

Overachiever

She can knit; she can crochet. She can embroider and cross-stitch and quilt. She can sew--not just dresses and suits, but bridal gowns with ten-foot trains, encrusted all over with beads and seed pearls. Plus all the gowns for the bridesmaids, maid of honor, and flower girls. Bathing suits for the kids and tailored suits for her husband.

She can make stained glass--not just suncatchers and little objets d'art like the kaleidescope that sits in my library, but the rose window in her church. She can bead: not just bracelets and necklaces and earrings, but ornate collars of 24-carat-gold seed beads.

She can cook. Not just a mean dinner, but all the food for a wedding party. All the lunches for the kids at the school she helped to found. The daily quota of cinnamon rolls for the coffeehouse/restaurant she owns. She's the woman who says, "If you're going to light the oven to make a pie, you might as well make six."

And this is what she does in her spare time. She has a job, after all.

If she were my older sister, she might get obnoxious about it. But she's my baby sister, so in fact she's real sweet about her accomplishments.

She showed up two days ago, and she's already whipping my house into shape. It looks like the portière might get crossed off the list of resolutions after all. And the sit-down dinner for 30 is not going to be anything to panic about. Leslie is in the house.