creekylis-I was in the same conundrum as you and couldn't find pics for the life of me. It was so hard to picture how it would look but I took the chance and I am happy that I did. I went from a very dark kitchen and everything in my house is dark stained wood and there is a LOT of it! The PO was a finish carpenter(carpentress) and it shows. I love stained wood but enough was enough. These pics are of the only item besides the fireplace that is original to the room. My DH would not let me swap out the windows and therefore the conundrum was created. Please ignore the two different tiles on the ledge-our reno is still incomplete. The large bow window replaced a slightly smaller one that literally took a hit in the demo and had to be replaced(i should have told my GC, who is my DB to have another accident over in the corner windows, too :I am happy the way it turned out in the end, but alot of angst over this decision. Good luck on making yours. Unfortunately the pics at photobucket are much darker than on my monitor and maybe if i e-mailed them direct to you it would show better? If you'd like send me your e-mail and I can do that for you. HTH Here is a link that might be useful: Painted Wood Trim w/stained windows

I don't mind what you're showing there now, but you may have a different look, color scheme in mind. We have a similar situation--7 six-foot windows in a dining area. We have a beautiful view, but eating with the sun in our eyes is no fun. I just settled on stock woven wood shades from Loew's, since we're tightening our belts right now. They look very nice, filter the sun enough to be comfortable, and allow us to see through to our view. We hated giving up even the 13" of stack that they take up. I'm still considering panels on the ends and corners, but it's a tight fit, as yours appears to be. Would love to see what others have done.

Thank you so much for the input! Maybe I didn't make myself clear enough, but the window boxes I have in mind are not for the windows pictured. I simply posted this photo because it shows what the windows are like where I want to use the window boxes. The windows I want to use the boxes on are on the front of my house - not on the front porch as pictured. (I just don't happen to have a good photo showing those windows at the moment.) I like the simple look of these English Garden window boxes: And I wouldn't have to worry about painting them, since I have black iron work in the railings (gosh, need to paint the railing though - as evidenced by the pic I posted! LOL!), and the yard light is black metal as well. The only thing that concerns me now is whether or not my windows are actually high enough off the ground where I want to use the window boxes to look right. I just found this -- an OLD photo of the windows I'd want to use the box on (taken long before we created the new flowerbed which is currently in front of these windows), but you can see how low to the ground the windows are ... and with the new plants we've installed there, if they grow much, well ... just not 100% sure how it'd look. Jaybird, I love potato vine! I've got it trailing out of a couple of planters that flank my entry, and also in a large planter on the side of the house. It's one thing I have a hard time killing! ;-) The area where I'd use the window boxes is part sun/part shade so there's actually quite a bit I could plant there. And I don't mind watering daily ... I actually enjoy tending to my plants - unless the mosquitos are out in full force, and then I just do it in a hurry! I had never heard of Soil Moist, but will look into that! Thank you again for the suggestions and kind comments! I appreciate you guys helping me to think this through!

I think your shades look a bit odd for the room because the vertical trims from the windows look out of place and stand out without relationship to anything else. Another way to remedy the situation is to have drapes mounted over the shades so that there are other vertical lines that pull them together. Kind of like the last picture that boxerpups posted. (I am not sure though) If you want to use separate shades for each window, the color of the shade has to fade with the wall color so you don't see the white trim. I think this is the biggest reason the shades as is don't fit in the room. I you use larger shades mounted over multiple windows, this may make your room look squwat. You may want to play with some software and see how it looks.