Do your Drapes Need a Refresh? Here’s What’s Trending…
BWS Design • December 3, 2018
There is no better way to spruce up a room than changing the window treatments, especially the drapes. With so many eye-catching ideas, everyone will think you totally redecorated, especially if you move the furniture around. Look around your room for a new color or pattern idea.
It’s All About Light-Weight Layering
Going into the New Year, living rooms and bedrooms are being adorned with multi-colored layering. It is two, three and even four colors being layered together. Beautiful fringes, chords, and tassels are used to design dramatic scallops and angles to make every home unique.
Living Rooms that Entertain
Many people still enjoy having an elegant room for entertaining their guests. You can dress up your room with dramatic draperies.
- If your living room is painted in a white, beige or light color, deep colored drapes mixed with lightweight, sheer inserts is always a beautiful way to be bold, but allow light to come into a room. Using multi-colored panels can also be a way of pulling in different colors you want to highlight from your furnishings. It doesn’t have to be totally symmetrical with dramatic swoops and angles.
- If you have furniture that is mono-colored, you can pick up that color with your drapes and select a light-weighted and patterned insert. Dramatic toppers can add a bold look
- If you want the hardware part of the decor, there are beautiful bronze, gold, and wood rods, and ends that can a dramatic look. Adding elegant, chorded ropes and tassels of gold or bronze can make a rich look.
Family Room Where Everyone Hangs Out
- A lot of homes have grown accustomed to a white family room with built-in shelves and hearths. The walls and furniture are neutral tones. If you have a few throw pillows with a bright color, that would color the room and break up the neutral tones. Again, layering heavier-colored, outside panels with lighter sheers in the middle is a great way to allow a softer light into an already bright-white room.
- If your family room has the warmth of woods, lighter toned curtains would be best. Depending on your furniture, you can use light-colored patterns. If you have heavy, dark furniture, large stripes that run horizontally with soft-toned colors is a classic look.
Kitchen Windows Are for Gazing
Most people don’t like closing off their kitchen windows, especially when the windows are over the sink. It’s always relaxing to look out when we’re doing the dishes. Some people have beautiful bay windows that welcome in the morning light. Depending on how your kitchen faces the rising and setting sun, you may want to be able to dim some of that sunlight.
- For homes without the glare of the morning or afternoon sunlight, shear-type curtains are perfect in the kitchen.
- For kitchens that are soaked with the morning sun, sun-blocking materials are available. You can even use the cafe curtain idea with a bit of flair using a bold color panel on the outside of two sheer panels. You may like the bold color as the top panel.
- For a bay window dressed with plantation shutters, four solid or patterned panels placed at the outside and inside frames are all you need to accent your kitchen’s decor.
- For smaller windows, window blinds that you can pull all the way up are also a great idea for the kitchen, especially for those kitchens with blinding sunlight. There are plenty of different ideas and types of blinds that offer a pretty print or light colors to allow sunlight to filter through into the room. The cafe-style curtains are always great to add just a bit of decor in your kitchen. The cafe curtain comes in many different looks, so it doesn’t have to look outdated.
Bedrooms – Fancy or Plain
Many master bedrooms, especially those with a lanai and pool, have large slider doors. Along with blinds or shutters for privacy, drapes and curtains make a bedroom cozy and play a big part of the decor.
- For those big sliders, many people have a sliding blind of some type for privacy and to keep out the morning sun for those days when you actually get to sleep in. Again, layering would give you a way to add a couple of colors for a simple or dramatic look. There are many cornice board designs to hide the top of your sliders for a crisp and clean look. A simple and bold look is using those curtains with the big loops hanging on a beautiful rod.
- The smaller bedroom windows where you use a panel design on the sliders can be dressed with just a single color taken from the sliders.
- If your bedroom only has a couple of windows, you can make them appear bigger with cornice boards, long panels with sheer lace covering the window panes.
Just Blinds Can Help You Create A Refreshing New Look
With over 30 years of experience in the Central Alabama area, our creative team at Just Blinds, Inc. has been helping homeowners design and create exciting changes with window treatments whether through custom blinds, shades, plantation shutters and all types of window fashions. Our in-home consultations are free. We are always excited to see our customers love their homes all over again and again with a refreshing new look through the windows. Let us help you envision the new look.
Expert Advice by Just Blinds
When the mercury soars, never underestimate the power of blinds, shades, and other window treatments to keep your living space cool. With the techniques that follow, you can limit demand on your air conditioner, lower your energy bill, and maintain stunning aesthetics both inside and out. 1. Go For the Layered Look If you don't want blackout blinds that completely block out light and heat, consider layering your window treatments for the summer months. This is a great way to add depth and texture to your rooms while still maintaining a tight home envelope and limiting solar heat gains. Use wood or faux wood blinds to create a solid base layer. Then, add sheers and custom curtains to finish the look. Layering creates levels of flexibility and adaptability that single window treatments cannot match. You can close all three layers for maximum heat blocking, slant your blinds and close your sheers to let limited sunlight in, or open your drapes and your blinds and use your sheers for light filtering. 2. Beat the Heat With Outdoor Window Treatments Some of the best window treatments for blocking heat and light during the summer months belong on the outside of your home. If you haven't done so already, consider investing in shutters. Shutters can vastly improve the efficiency of your home while providing excellent UV ray protection. This will keep your flooring and furnishings from fading while offering a fair amount of skin protection. In addition to tightening home envelopes, shutters provide excellent noise reduction and offer added protection against the natural elements. With your shutters standing guard as your home's first defense, you'll still have one or more window treatments at the interior of the building during the next big heat wave. Outdoor Shades Work, Too If shutters aren't the right look for you, opt for lightweight, retractable shades. Installing outdoor shades gives you yet another way to safeguard your home from solar heat gains whenever temperatures spike. You can use outdoor shades with layered indoor window treatments to create an airtight space and reduce stress on your AC during the hottest portion of the day. Once the sun sets, you can easily draw them open. 3. Optimize Airflow According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), indoor air can be up to five time more contaminated than outdoor air. Even though air conditioners and heat pumps filter the indoor air during operation, they don't extract volatile organic compounds (VOCs) or other gaseous chemical contaminants. When the sun's out and you're running your air conditioner non-stop, all the contaminants introduced into your home by off-gassing building materials, cooking, room freshening sprays, and chemical-laden self-care products and cleaners remain trapped indoors. Blinds are great for optimizing airflow. When the sun sets, the mercury dives, and a cool breeze rolls in, you can turn your blind slats upwards to reflect light from the setting sun and slightly crack your windows. This technique works well for giving ACs an early evening break. It's also an excellent strategy for improving indoor air quality (IAQ). As natural light decreases, you can open your blind slats wider and let more fresh, outdoor air flow in. This easy air exchange will get your home and your IAQ ready for the challenges of the next sweltering day. 4. Keep Indoor Moisture in Check With Shades With a high-functioning air conditioner or heat pump, you'll get reliable humidity regulation whenever your cooling system is on. The right shades can support this by keeping outdoor moisture outside and preventing the buildup of condensation on your windows. Cellular shades are made for high-moisture areas, and they're the perfect addition to any other southern home. You can get similar benefits from faux wood blinds, vinyl blinds, and aluminum blinds. Moisture-resistant blinds or shades are an essential upgrade if you currently have heavy fabric drapes or multiple layers of sheers. Some materials capture and retain moisture. They're also prone to problems like mold and mildew and can lower IAQ as a result. 5. Go Motorized Don't worry about dragging your ladder out to draw your outdoor shades or running through your home to manually adjust your blinds. Shop for motorized window treatments that you can open, close, and adjust with just the touch of a button. This way, as lighting and temperatures change, you can quickly adapt your window treatments to reflect your most current needs. At Just Blinds, we're all about comfort. We want your window treatments to look amazing, but believe that you should feel amazing too. We offer a fantastic selection of blinds, shutters, shades, and custom draperies to help our clients beat the heat in the summer months . Let us help you stay cool in style. To speak with our design consultants, contact Just Blinds today!
Windows give a home warmth, light, and a view of the outside world. But with the right treatments, you can also use your windows to make your home feel cozy. Coziness is a semse of comfort and familiarity. It defines a charm that feels like home, whether it's the coziness of a warm room in winter, your movie den in the summer. When we think of coziness, we often think of couches, candles, and throw blankets. But your windows play an equally important part. After all, it's your window treatments that frame the light, add softness to your walls, and set the mood for every room. The right window decorations can make your home feel warm and inviting. Using Windows, Drapes, and Shades to Create Coziness Window treatements create a vibe for your entire room. Drapes, shades, and shutters can be used to create a backdrop of texture, color, and style. They also allow you to control the light levels in your home and even the color of the light. This means that your windows are the best place to start when making a room feel cozy. Layering soft drapes in rich colors is a great way to add that sense of comfort and warmth to a room, while cheerful blinds in soft neutrals can help a room to feel relaxed and welcoming. You can also use drapes or blinds to add a splash of color as a bold accent in any room. These touches combined with glowing sunshine during the day create a cozy and comfortable space. Plants as Cozy Window Decor You can use other types of decor to evoke a sense of coziness, too. We particularly love plants. Leafy green plants love the sunshine as much as you do and thrive when placed in a sunny window. Place an elegant snake plant in the windowsill or hang creeping ivy from a hook near the top of a window frame to make your room feel cheerful and alive with green energy. Plants make a home feel natural and vibrantly lived-in which is perfect for your cozy vibe. For a cozy kitchen, you can even grow fresh herbs in a box on the windowsill that add a delicious aroma and tasty fresh seasoning along with their natural visual appeal. Enhance Your Space with Aromatherapy Speaking of aromatics, you might be surprised how much your windows can take part in cozy aromatherapy. Window treatments like drapes and blinds are fabric that can help purfumes and essential oils linger in the room for days. Cozy scents are often warm aromas like cinnamon, vanilla, lavender, almonds, and coffee. But fresh fruit or floral scents that smell like "home" to you can also add a sense of coziness to each room. Simply spritz your curtains with your favorite scents and each room will subtly carry that comforting smell of home that makes you want to snuggle into the couch and relax at the end of each day. Moody Shade and Maximizing Light When we visualize coziness, light levels often play a role. Your minds eye may see a sun-drenched cottage or a gently lit library as your mental idea of a room that is perfectly cozy. Window treatments allow you to set the mood by reducing or maximizing light to the perfect levels. Well-designed shades and drapes can pull back attractively to maximize light, bathing your room in the warm welcoming glow of sunshine. Or if you prefer a more relaxed coziness, you can use translucent drapes or cellular shades to filter the light exactly the right amount. Diffuse and reduced light filtered through fabric of a warm color can make you feel safe and at peace. Increase Your Happiness with Window Design Your home should feel welcoming, relaxing, and cozy. The right window treatments can help set the stage for a delightful welcome home each night, rejuvinating weekends, and an overall feeling of at-home coziness when you are relaxing in your favorite place. To achieve this goal, you can experiment with home decor changes, including your windows, to achieve your ideal at-home bliss. Contact us today for custom drapes and blinds to complete your cozy room design.