Home Furnishing and Interior Textiles
This domain covers furnishing fabrics and interior textile products: curtains, upholstery, bedding, towels, table linen, carpets and wall coverings. The exam tests your ability to select fabrics by performance and calculate quantities for real rooms.
Core rules
- Upholstery needs abrasion resistance, dimensional stability, colourfastness and often flame retardancy. Curtains need drape, light control and resistance to fading.
- Bedding is judged on handle, moisture absorption, shrinkage and wash durability. Towels depend on absorbency, loop structure and GSM.
- Carpets and rugs are described by pile type, density, fibre and backing. Wall coverings must resist fading and cleaning.
- Furnishing quantities depend on width, drop, fullness, pattern repeat, hems and heading allowance.
- Interior textiles must also suit maintenance: washable for kitchen linen, dry-cleanable or spot-cleanable for delicate upholstery.
Worked example
A window is 120 cm wide with a 150 cm drop. Curtains use a fullness ratio of 2, so total flat curtain width = 120 × 2 = 240 cm. For a pair, each panel is 120 cm wide. With 140 cm fabric width, one fabric width per panel is enough. Cut length per panel = drop 150 cm + top heading 10 cm + lower hem 15 cm = 175 cm. Two panels need 2 × 175 = 350 cm, or 3.5 m, before any pattern repeat allowance. Reasoning: fullness sets flat width, while drop plus headings and hems sets cut length.
Traps that cost marks
Using window width as curtain width ignores fullness. Forgetting heading and hem allowances shortens the finished curtain. Patterned fabric needs extra length for repeat matching. Do not choose upholstery by colour alone; abrasion and lightfastness matter. Do not use the same GSM expectation for towels and sheers.
Key idea
Home furnishing selection balances appearance, durability, maintenance and exact measurement.