Last Updated on October 15, 2024 by SampleBoard
When furnishing your home, most of your thoughts and energy might go toward choosing furniture and decor pieces for the various surfaces.
Sometimes, it’s easy to not give the windows as much attention as they need.
However, they can have just as significant an impact on the aesthetic and feel of the room, not just from the natural light they provide but also the treatments you use to decorate them.
Here, we’re going to look at some of the window treatments you can select, what they add to your home, and what they take from it as well.
*Disclosure: I only recommend products I would use myself and all opinions expressed here are our own. This post may contain affiliate links that at no additional cost to you, I may earn a small commission.
A trendy option, a good solid set of curtains can help you add a lot of privacy to the home.
These typically hang from curtain rods above the window (which can be used to highlight certain architectural styles) and come in a wide range of thicknesses, patterns, styles, and shades.
You can get options like sheer fabrics that don’t have much to add privacy or block out sunlight, but the more opaque options tend to be some of the best when it comes to blocking light.
They also help to add some heating efficiency to the room, as they do a good job of preventing heat transfer through your windows.
The specifics of which curtains you choose, as shown at House Beautiful, are going to play a huge role, however.
As with curtains, there are many different types of blinds, which can affect how much you can control both the light and privacy they offer.
However, control is one of the critical elements of offerings from companies like ABC Blinds.
With blinds, you have slats made of wood, plastic, or fabric that you can adjust the angle of, controlling how much sunlight you let in.
You can also slide them along the roller to open the window entirely. This lighter, minimalist treatment has become increasingly popular in modern times.
However, most types, except for blackout blinds, tend to let a little more light through than curtains. Curtains and blinds often get paired together for a best-of-both-worlds approach.
Exclusively made to measure at Reynolds Blinds, these blinds can be tailored to fit
your specific window dimensions, ensuring a perfect fit and finish.
Blinds and curtains tend to close over a window horizontally. Still, windows that are taller than they are wider might benefit from a bit of control over how much exposure you get vertically.
Roller shades, also known as Roman shades, are an excellent example of window treatments that can do just that.
These are typically sheets of fabric on a roller that you can control. You can have them roll down over the length of the window or retract them back up into the roller itself.
They tend to offer excellent coverage and light blocking for a window, but they don’t provide a lot of privacy when open.
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One of the more traditional window treatment choices, shutters like those from Open Shutters tend to be made from wood, or at the very least faux wood and are closed over the windows much like doors.
They typically have small slats in the wood that allow some light to pass through them but don’t allow one to see inside or outside very easily.
As such, they’re great for privacy when closed and can add to a classic aesthetic for the home, which can suit older-fashioned buildings.
However, they don’t offer much in the way of control; they’re either shut or open, with no in-between to let you control how much light you let in through them.
There are blinds that you can get, like the ones mentioned above, that have slats operated on a roller that can be operated horizontally.
However, when we talk about ‘wood blinds’, we’re not typically talking about those types.
These are more like the shutters mentioned above, where they’re in a wooden frame that is fitted over the window.
Instead of being completely open or closed like shutters, wood blinds allow you to adjust the slats within the frame so that you can better control how much light they let in.
They don’t offer as much lighting potential as a standard set of blinds, but they’re a good in-between for blinds and shutters.
While some people might consider curtains and drapes the same thing, there does tend to be a distinction between them.
Curtains are designed to be opened and closed much more quickly as an everyday thing, while drapes tend to be a lot thicker, have a more formal style, and are explicitly used to block out light or to help keep in the heat during the winter.
As such, they are typically not used as the single window treatment on a window but might be paired with things like blinds or roller shades.
Most drapes tend to be double-lined, which can also make them a little more expensive than curtains.
A slightly more modern addition to the world of window treatments, solar shades do exactly what the name suggests: they add shade to the room from the sun. However, they don’t block out sunlight entirely.
Rather, they act more akin to sunglasses, making sure that there isn’t a strong glare coming in through the windows while still allowing enough light for visibility.
As such, they can be suitable for homes with furniture that needs to be protected from too much direct sunlight and can add a little middle-ground between being totally in the shade or in the light.
That said, they don’t offer much privacy during the daytime, as it can be quite easy to see through them even from outside.
Selecting the right window treatments should be considered as important as everything else in the home. Hopefully, the tips above will help you do that.
