When we think of rope, we normally think of it as something to tie things up with. More and more though, it is starting to be used for interior design purposes.
In this blog, Russell Hurst, owner of Ropes Direct,
outlines five ways ropes can be used to add to your latest
interior design project.
For years, I knew who my customers were. They were mainly people who needed mooring or rigging for their boats or builders who needed rope for on-site.
Therefore, I was surprised when people started contacting me looking for advice on which kind of rope would be best as they were decorating their hallway or another part of their house and their idea involved rope. Below I outline five ways you can incorporate rope into your next decorating job, using examples from my previous customers where possible;
A soft-to-the-touch binding for a staircase
This September, we received a lovely e-mail from Mrs Critchlow. She had contacted us asking if we could recommend some rope that would be soft to the touch as she wanted to bind it around the metal handrail of her staircase. We duly sent her some yacht rope, designed to be kind to your hands when you may be at sea in harsh conditions, and, in her own words, “the job of winding the rope round was challenging and took some patience but was well worth the effort” and it “made a massive difference to the stairs in appearance and comfort to the hand”. The before and after photos can be seen below, and I personally think it looks great.
Install a rope rail on your stairs instead!
Rather than simply binding rope to an existing handrail on your staircase, you could do away with the handrail all together and install a rope rail instead. Again, use something soft-to-the-touch like yacht rope, fit it nice and taut, and then add to the look by painting the stairs themselves or by accessorising the staircase with pictures, rail fittings or a theme to tie the whole staircase together.
Adding character to your floors
At the start of 2015, we received an e-mail from a customer in Scotland; He had recently laid new carpeting which then shrank. Having initially sent him some samples, he tasked us with providing him with some made-to-measure lengths of jute rope to cover the gaps between the carpet and the skirting boards. To prevent fraying, we whipped the ends with flax twine before sending them off. Again, you can see the result below. Not only does it look good, but I thought it was an ingenious solution which helped to add character to his property.
Accessorise around the house with rope
Rope comes in all sizes, and so, can also be used to create accessories in different rooms. For example, the candle lanterns pictured below were created using some of our 10mm cotton rope and 10mm jute rope, and they look lovely. In addition, you could also use rope to create place mats, coasters, picture frames or any number of other home accessories too.
