Where do you start when selecting window treatments? That is the question many home and apartment dwellers ask themselves when they decide to update their window coverings or select them for the first time. There are considerations to take into account before going off to the store to make a purchase.
Step one is to consider the function of the room. Who is going to be using the room and what will they be doing in the room. Remember to take into consideration, for instance, if you have a television set in the room, the type of glare that you will have from the windows if you don't have something that works as a filter. This could be a shade or type of curtain or drapery.
You might want to put a window treatment in the room that takes out the glare by fully filtering light. If the person that uses the room works at night, do they need a treatment that completely blocks out the sun so that they can sleep during the day?
If you live where your home faces south and you have silk drapes or actually any kind of window treatment, you need to have a lining. People do not always think about the sun eating through the fabric. After two or three years of damage, you are going to need another window treatment, and you will not understand why. Linings also help keep heat in during the winter and keep the house cool in the summer. As you can see, linings have more than one purpose. However, more than anything, people need to take into account the placement of the room and the function of the room.
Step two takes in consideration the color scheme that will be used in the room. It is always easier to have the room painted first and as well as have all the colors coordinated. But then, of course, there are people who decorate the rest of the room first and then think they now need to find a fabric to match. It is much easier to match the paint on the walls to the fabric than the other way around. I would encourage you to consider the type of fabric that you would like to put in the room or try and select it before you buy your wall paint and paint the walls.
Step three involves the final touches on the window treatments. Tassels and other trimmings are fun and serve a couple of functions. The first one depends on how formal you want to make the space. Sometimes people have lots of very decorative fabric or exotic and lush type fabrics and then they add the trim that pushes it to the top. Or, you can add trim and just have something very plain with an accent. If you don't have enough color in a room, you can add trim and then you can pull in other colors with the colors that are in the trim. You can also put trim on pillows and window panels. If you just have a plain room and you have no idea how you're going to bring in other colors, trim, tassels and embellishments are the way to make a room look stylish and "off the chart".
By:Lynn Cressy
