This Detail Automatically Makes a Traditional House Feel Moody

PublishedSep 25, 2024 2:00 PM EDT

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Interior designer Tess Twiehaus always kicks off her projects by brainstorming a list of keywords with her clients—basically how they want their home to look and feel. “Light” and “airy” come up a lot, but that’s not at all what she heard when she sat down with a fashion-obsessed 30-something who had just bought a 1,500-square-foot Spanish-style home in Los Angeles. “One of the phrases that kept coming back up was ‘very sexy,’” says the Tess Interiors founder. That naturally led them down a path of black accents—from zellige tile in the kitchen to a Nickey Kehoe pendant in the dining room—but it also inspired them to go superdark in the most unexpected place: the curtains.

“If you go into a cool hotel room, you’re usually going to be faced with darker window treatments, so we wanted to lean into that and make it a total vibe, a total escape,” says Twiehaus. And honestly, who doesn’t want their bedroom to feel like a chic hotel getaway?

In the primary bedroom, the designer went full color-drenching. Once she landed on the green paint for the walls, window trim, and closet, she chose a James Malone fabric for the curtains in a moody forest green. So good.

The bathroom went with a blue theme, so she topped the space off with navy café curtains that add a little layer of privacy around the tub. Since Twiehaus was buying fabric by the yard anyway, it made total sense to swath the guest bedroom windows in the same midnight hue too—this time opting for roman shades that play nicely with the romance of the home’s original wood windows.

Twiehaus’s go-to fabricator, Heritage Draperies, sewed all the panels and secured the hardware—because to her, it’s worth splurging on customization. “The biggest thing you’re purchasing is the tailoring and execution,” says the designer. When she’s spending the money to go bespoke, she almost always asks for pinch pleats and, for drapes, just a quarter-inch of pooling on the floor. “It really comes down to the details,” she adds. Trust her on this one.

OK, so you’d probably think dark fabric in front of small windows in a tiny house would make the whole place feel like a cave—but here’s the thing: the trick is all in the fabric. Twiehaus chose a textile (linen) that’s translucent by nature, so it still lets plenty of light filter in. It’s just a different kind of light and airy, and honestly, I’m here for it.

Worn Velvet Curtain, West Elm (from $129)

Lydia Geisel has been on the editorial team at Domino since 2017. Today, she writes and edits home and renovation stories, including house tours, before and afters, and DIYs, and leads our design news coverage. She lives in New York City.

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