Window treatments have a big influence on a home’s interior. They often set the mood for a room and give the space a more complete and finished look. Textiles add softness to a bare window by tempering the often angular lines of walls, window frames and molding. Let’s investigate some important benefits window treatments have to offer, and explore a few room specific alternatives you’ll want to add to your design strategy.
Favor Function
Window treatments are important in room design, but the obvious visual advantages they offer are only part of the package. Window enhancements can also:
- Provide insulation for environmental control and energy savings
- Offer light control
- Conceal unattractive or private interior or exterior features
- Include easy installation or easy care options
Before you invest in a window treatment, recognize what features are most important to you. For instance, if you’re dealing with single pane windows, that may include insulated drapes or honeycomb blinds that limit heat gain or loss through windows during extreme weather. If your major concern is good light management, slat style blinds could be a perfect choice. If you’re your goal is maximizing the natural light in a room, shears that offer little or no insulation do a great job of diffusing illumination, especially in a northern facing windows that typically provide only moderate light at the best of times.
Let The Sun Be Your Guide
Drapes and blinds may look like the enemy of sunlight, but that’s not the case. Window treatments can do a good job of helping you manage the amount of sunlight coming into your home. This can include adding slat style blinds you can easily adjust to let in more or less light, adding roller shades, opting for a layered solution, or choosing blackout curtains that block all light. As an example, in summer you and your houseplants may enjoy the morning light, but afternoon direct sunlight is unpleasantly bright and intense. Installing slat style blinds or drapes over sheers will allow you to make easy light adjustments as needed. If light is a real problem, you might also consider investing in UV window film that will help protect your carpet and furnishings from sun fading.
You can often use your home’s directional orientation to help guide your choices. South-facing windows are high light zones in spring and summer, while the lowest light windows not blocked by landscaping are typically north-facing.
Accentuate The Positive
Windows are part of the architecture of a room, and as such they attract attention, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re attractive in and of themselves. Beyond function, window treatments are designed to reveal the best features of a window and conceal its flaws.
If your bathroom sports a small, utilitarian aluminum window, or the wood around the windows in your older home needs work, natural light and fresh air may be the only positive things they have to offer. In both these cases, concealing window treatments can work like the right wardrobe pieces in your closet, accentuating the positive and eliminating the negative.
Living Room Chic
When allocating your window treatment budget, give your living room a large share of the bounty. Drapes and other features are likely to be your biggest expense, especially if you’re dealing with multiple, large or uniquely shaped windows. When choosing a living room window treatment, remember to:
Pick a focal point – If your living room already sports a wonderful focal point like a fireplace, you may not want to draw too much attention to your windows.
Create balance – Modify your layout to create a harmonious spatial balance between heavy or layered drapes and large furniture pieces.
Don’t overdo it – When combining elements like decorative rods, valances, sheers and drapes (sometimes in complex patterns or distinctive textures), it’s easy to underestimate the impact the finished treatment will have. Before you buy, consider each element carefully. The trend in recent years has been toward cleaner lines and less ornamentation in drapes and other more formal window treatments. If you feel the collective result of your design could be too much, you’re probably right.
Family Room Flair
Less formal than a living room, the family room is often a friendly but functional space that benefits from practical features like plenty of task lighting and flexible furnishings. Window treatments for the family room should be practical, too. This includes choosing durable, easy care materials that provide some natural light as well as adequate privacy.
Today, Roman shades and blinds made from sustainable materials like bamboo and other woven grasses are popular for family rooms, game rooms, man caves and other casual environments. They also have the advantage of being available in a wide range of styles that suit almost any budget. For a more “dressed” look, both can be outfitted with decorative valance treatments.
Cozy Kitchen
With kitchen window treatments, less is often more. A simple valance, cheerful café curtain or half-mast Roman shade is sufficient to dress a kitchen window while providing enough important natural light to balance large appliances and bulky build-ins. When shopping for kitchen curtains, prefer washable fabrics like natural cotton and synthetics. Quality standards for this type of casual window cover can be sketchy, though. Check for overcast seams and other quality details on any kitchen curtains you plan to keep longer than a season.
Bathroom Retreat
Light and privacy are both important when dressing a bathroom window. If you aren’t lucky enough to have a frosted glass windowpane, you can outfit your clear glass pane with cut-to-fit opaque film that has the look, and privacy, of frosted glass. Decorative window film products are available in a number of styles. This will make privacy less of an issue and allow you to maximize the available light as needed.
Adding a window treatment designed to coordinate with your shower curtain is a good idea, but you can also use many of the same options for themes, colors and natural materials as you would for an adjoining bedroom. It’s also okay to take a little more dramatic license when decorating a bathroom. If you’re a ruffle girl at heart but don’t like overdoing it in other areas of your home, make the bathroom your creative canvas with a ruffled curtain and other ultra-feminine accessories.
Bedroom Comfort
Privacy and light control are the two biggest features of a good bedroom window treatment. Both can be achieved through the use of blackout curtains and shades. In fact, bedrooms are second only to media rooms as the most likely locations for an aggressive light control strategy. For the best results, prefer floor-length curtains made using foam-backed, opaque fabric. Blackout curtains may also feature enhanced insulating ability.
When choosing blackout shades, favor an inside mount. With this type of installation, the shade is positioned inside the window frame and offers optimum light blocking. Sourcing inside mounted shades requires precise measurements, so measure twice for this one.
The bedroom can also be the right room for a little decorative indulgence. Blackout shades can be used alone or in combination with drapes or valances. You can create a romantic mood with materials like silk, lace or velvet, or dial up the drama with animal prints. Themed bedrooms are popular too, especially in kids’ rooms and for nurseries (where blackout curtains can also be handy). Textile retailers are good at coordinating themes for bedroom curtains, linens and rugs. The challenge is in choosing just one style from the many options available.
