A Guide to Choosing the Right Home Window Treatments
If you’re furnishing a new living space or thinking of redoing your old one, chances are you’re caught up in major tasks like designing room layouts, choosing furniture, or purchasing essential appliances. With so many important things to do, it’s easy to let smaller tasks fall by the wayside until the last minute. But while you prepare to buy window type aircon online or browse your favorite online marketplaces for attractive furnishings, it would also be a good idea to think about how to dress your windows.
Choosing the correct window treatments for each room in your home is crucial to achieving the atmosphere you want. Hence, you shouldn’t simply pick one type for your whole home and call it a day. Because different rooms will have different looks and also unique requirements in terms of light, privacy, and even temperature, you’ll want to consider individual rooms separately.
If you’re unsure of where to start when it comes to styling your windows, this handy guide will show you everything you need to know.
Types of Window Treatments You Can Choose From
Before all else, you’ll want to familiarize yourself with the many different kinds of window treatments available and the unique advantages each one offers. Window dressings are typically sorted into the following categories:
Curtains
Curtains are possibly the most classic choice of window treatment and for good reason. They’re relatively inexpensive, easy to clean and maintain, and can be drawn shut or opened by hand. Plus, if you’re super particular about aesthetics, curtains are also highly customizable. When it comes to length, style, material, pattern, and color, your choices are virtually endless, so you should have no trouble finding curtains that work perfectly for your needs.
Drapery
Drapes offer a more luxe, formal alternative to curtains, as they often incorporate intricate details like pleats, folds, and decorative trimmings. Though they also hang on a curtain rod and are most often displayed in pairs, drapes will generally hang down all the way to the floor. They’re also usually made of thicker, heavier, and therefore more expensive fabrics.
Drapes are the ideal option for rooms where you’re going for an elegant, commanding look, such as formal living and dining rooms. They’re also a good choice for your master bedroom, as their heavy fabrics are extremely effective for blocking out light, controlling the room’s interior temperature, and guaranteeing privacy.
Blinds
In contrast to drapes and curtains, which are made from fabrics, blinds are made of stiff materials like vinyl, wood, or plastic. They’re composed of multiple hard slats that can be tilted open to let more light into a room or closed for privacy. They also come with an attached rod or other pulling mechanism that you can use to manipulate the slats.
Blinds may be installed in a vertical or horizontal alignment. Most homeowners prefer vertical blinds for covering large floor-to-ceiling windows or glass sliding doors. Horizontal blinds, also known as Venetian blinds, are perfect for smaller windows.
Should you choose to use them for a particular room, blinds can be very visually striking, especially if you maneuver them to create intricate shadows. However, one thing you should bear in mind about blinds is that they can be quite high-maintenance compared to other window dressings. Cleaning is generally a more involved process for blinds than it is for their fabric counterparts, and replacing any broken parts may also be more complicated than simply buying new clip-up rings or a new curtain rod.
Shades
Shades are sheets of fabric or other material wrapped around a roller that lets you unfurl them vertically down the length of a window or retract them upward when you don’t need them. Like blinds, the mechanism for manipulating the roller will usually come in the form of a rod you need to turn or a cord you can pull. Choose roller shades if you’d like a modern look or Roman shades for something more classic.
How to Choose Window Treatments
Regardless of type, window treatments serve both a decorative and functional purpose. They’re meant to help pull together the overall look of a room, and they also enable the user to control the room’s privacy levels, light, and temperature. Thus, it’s best to take both style and function into consideration when picking window treatments for your home.
Considering the function of a particular space can help you determine the best type of window treatment to go with. As mentioned earlier, lightweight curtains work great for casual and relaxed spaces, while drapes are best for more formal settings. In particularly personal, intimate areas like bedrooms, you may want blackout curtains or shades, which afford you the best possible privacy and lighting controls.
When determining what particular style and look to go with, it’s best to take the room’s overall decorating scheme into consideration. For example, is the look you’re going for monochromatic and minimalist? Homey and warm? Quirky and colorful? Whatever your vision, choose window treatments that work in harmony with it and won’t clash with the other decorative pieces in your space.
Though they’re often overlooked in interior design, window treatments can significantly alter the way a room looks and feels. Once you choose the right ones, they’ll go a long way toward bringing every room in your home to life.
