The answers, before you have to ask.

We do both. We come to your house and measure the windows ourselves, and we come back to fit and dress the finished curtains or blinds. It is the whole point of made-to-measure: a bay that looks square almost never is, floors are rarely level, and the pole position has to be decided before the drop can be measured. People who have written about us mention the fitting more than anything else — one review says the curtains were fitted without any mess, which is exactly the standard we aim at.

Yes, and please do. Fabric is almost impossible to judge honestly under showroom lighting. Take the samples home, pin them up at the actual window, and look at them in the morning, in the afternoon and again at night under your own lamps — a colour that reads warm at midday can turn grey by six o'clock. Nobody expects a decision on the spot, and we would far rather you took a week over it.

Interlining is a soft blanket layer sewn between the face fabric and the lining. It adds weight, insulates, muffles sound from outside, and gives a curtain that heavy, rounded fall you notice in well-dressed rooms. It costs more in both cloth and making, but it is the single most effective upgrade available — a modest fabric interlined almost always looks better than an expensive one left plain. It is most worth it on full-length curtains in a sitting room or a bedroom, and least worth it on a short blind.

A blackout lining, and a track or pole set well wider than the window. Blackout lining stops light coming through the fabric, but a little will always creep round the sides and over the top of any curtain — so the width of the track, and a pelmet or a deep heading, do as much work as the lining itself. Where the room has to be genuinely dark, a blackout-lined Roman blind fitted inside the reveal underneath the curtains is the belt-and-braces answer.

Very few rooms want all one or all the other. A blind sits in the reveal, holds its shape and lets you control daylight to the inch; curtains soften the room, insulate it and finish the window. Layering the two means you can have privacy on a dark evening without closing everything down. We will walk a room with you and say honestly which windows want which — it usually depends on how much wall there is for a curtain to stack back onto, and on which way the room faces.

Yes. Motorised systems are worth it where a window is genuinely awkward to reach — a full-height gable, glazing above a stairwell, a deep bay — and they are popular in bedrooms too. We fit the system, set the open and closed positions on site, and show you how to run it from a handset, a wall switch or your phone. Modern motors are quiet enough that this is no longer the compromise it once was.

We do, and it is very often the better choice. An older frame is usually built more solidly than a new equivalent, so re-covering a wing chair, a sofa or a set of dining chairs gets you a better piece of furniture than buying again would — and lets you put exactly the fabric you want on it. The frame is stripped and put right first: loose joints, tired webbing and sagging springs are dealt with before any of your cloth goes near it. We can also commission a bespoke piece from scratch where nothing off the shelf fits the space.

It depends far more on the fabric than on the making. Some designer cloths are on the mill's shelf and come quickly; others are woven to order and take considerably longer. We will give you a realistic date with your quotation rather than an optimistic one, and we would rather tell you up front that a particular fabric is slow than have you find out afterwards. Once the fabric arrives, making and fitting run to a slot we book with you.

Unit 3, Bridge House Courtyard, 18 Brockenhurst Road, Ascot, Berkshire SL5 9DL. We are open Monday to Friday, 9:30am to 5:30pm. You are welcome to walk in during those hours, but if you would like someone's full attention with the sample books out it is worth ringing 01344 238714 first. Saturday appointments can be arranged, but only by pre-booking — we are not open to walk-ins at the weekend.

Leave the dressing ties on for the few days we suggest after fitting — that is what sets the pleats into clean columns instead of letting them bunch. After that, vacuum the leading edges and hems gently with an upholstery attachment a couple of times a year, and keep the heading tapes out of direct steam. Most lined and interlined curtains should be dry cleaned by a specialist rather than washed, because the face fabric and the lining shrink at different rates. Ask us to put any leftover fabric by when the order is made; a spare metre makes a matching cushion or an invisible repair years later.