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Hi,
Your room does look like there's lots of love in your home! Here are your fabrics.
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I'm having a hard time seeing either of these with the current other upholstered items. The rocker with the large print plus the area rug seems to fight with them, but maybe I'm not seeing them closely enough--the gray in the one seems to not mesh with the others especially.

With plantation shutters you could omit curtains altogether. I think whatever you do would look best if it were the same on all the windows in that room, and personally I prefer full length drapes in a living room to valences. If you do plantation shutters, I'd go with white to match your trim.

I know you didn't ask, but I'll offer this suggestion and hope it's not offensive. I think you may have overloaded the bookcases a bit too much. It's wonderful to have family pics, but you might want to remove the ones on top of the bookcase and just leave that bare or add one or two larger items like pottery up there. I actually was wondering if you considered putting the bookcases on the wall with the love seat. It's hard to get a true feel for the room balance from the pictures, but I was just considering if that might work better since the love seat is smaller and less wood tone over there. HTH and I'm sure others will weigh in with some great suggestions.

Thank you for your suggestions, and your opening sentence was the best compliment I could ask for. It's very hard to arrange furniture in this room. There is a fireplace and built-in shelving opposite the sofa, but it's off to the right side of the room- not centered with the picture window- so you can't arrange furniture around it. The wall to the left of the loveseat is only about 12", opening to the front entry.
Since I like the warmth of the wall color, I want to stick with a gold color for the drapes, maybe with a white background to match the wood work and lighten it up.
I know I should put away some of the family photos, but every time I try, I'll pick one up, look at it, put it back.. each one brings back memories.

RE: blinds on the windows . . .well, we have a large picture window in our LR, too. When we moved in, I immediately wanted to get blinds (that would match the floor). Figured it would be neutral, and I could keep them forever.

WRONG! On such a huge window, it was just blinds, blinds, blinds in the room. It was a heavy feeling. Also, even open, they darken the room, and you need more light in your room . . .not less. So, I would personally not recommend blinds at all.

I agree with suja that the WT should match, though I know not everyone on this forum agrees with that. :)

What I would do is to edit what's there to start. Does not mean you need to keep it that way, but take what you can out and start with a fresh slate.

What color are the sofas? On my screen, they look like a dusty rose. I do not see the style or color working with the fabrics you have. The wall color looks more like a pale yellow in the photo, which I can't see with the fabric either.

Just from the pics, I would think you'd either need to repaint or get new fabric for the upholstery. It sounds like you like the paint, though, and new sofas are not an option.

Any chance for bigger pics? I think you have a lot to work with . . .cozy sofas, FP, bookcases . . .now it's just a matter of tying everything together.

The sofas are actually a tweedy, reddish brown. The rocking chair I found in a thrift store just before Christmas and plan to re-cover in a neutral velvet. It was on it's way to the basement when I brought it to the LR and said,"hey, it kind of blends in". We needed the extra seating. I really don't like the fabric on it now, it's just temporary.
I want to put wood blinds on the two smaller windows, drapes on the large window. Probably put matching valances over the blinds, similar to how I have it now.
I'm starting to feel updating it a step at a time, starting with window treatments, is just going to make the other stuff look worse by comparison. Sigh...

I think plantation shutters, painted white, on all of the windows would be a nice, fresh start. I know many people love sheers and layered draperies, but to me that is making your pretty room look a little cluttered. Taking down all those curtains, valences, and sheers will let it breathe, then you can see with a fresh eye what upholstery choices you may want to make. Good luck! Your room has great bones.

JCPenneys site has a great clearance on drapes right now. Go to their site and then to clearance up in the right hand corner.

I think I misunderstood your OP and thought you were asking about plantation shutters, but I think now you're referring to perhaps 2" blinds. Since it appears you want to have diffused light, blinds are one way to achieve that if you're ok with the reduced light. You said, "I want to put wood blinds on the two smaller windows, drapes on the large window. Probably put matching valances over the blinds, similar to how I have it now." Is there a particular reason for putting something different on the side windows? I can see that on that big front window, blinds would likely not be able to be raised, so they'd likely have to stay down, but think having blinds & valences on 2 and sheers & panels on one will make the room look somewhat disjointed since there seems to be no obvious reason.

I think I'd seriously ck out the jcp.com website because it would allow you to order and try out lots of drapery options without paying return shipping since you can return to a jcp store, and the prices when they're on sale are usually cheaper than making your own.

It's hard to force ourselves to take a hard look at how much stuff we put into our rooms. My DD forced me to do that with mine recently, and I have to admit the results are much cleaner looking. Try removing even some of the throw pillows. And back to the family photos--One solution to the desire to have lots of photos out is to get a digital picture frame. They're really nice now--some are nicely matted and can be programmed to turn off and on automatically. You literally can see thousands of pictures of your loved ones over the course of the day without having too many frames around to clutter up your home. Just another option--since pictures up on the top of bookcases really aren't easily seen--just look cluttery. :~) Hope you realize that was meant to be helpful.

No offense, I appreciate the feedback! I don't have anyone around here who cares at all about decorating, so it was great to find this forum. I'm having trouble visualizing blinds on the large window, but I will consider it.

I had a window like your large one in my last house and initially had faux white wood 2" blinds. Because of the length/weight, I had three separate blinds under one wooden blind valance that were inside mounts (the windows were actually three separate windows in one large frame). These looked very nice but I got really tired of raising and lowering daily. I then purchased a Hunter Douglas cellular shade (one shade) that I loved, so easy to raise and lower, great quality and when it was raised, it wasn't visible.

I think that would be a good solution for your room. Then you could have matching panels on all windows that would tie them together. The only thing with cellular shades is when they are open, they are open, not like blinds, unless you went with silhouttes.