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lkplatow

Hopelessly confused about window treatments

lkplatow
14 years ago

I admit it. I am not good at window treatments. AT ALL. So I need help, and lots of it.

Here's the deal. I recently redid our master bedroom. (I'll post pics as soon as I find the cord to download them from the camera, LOL!). We now have apple green walls (SW Springtime) and white trim. The bedding is a black and white floral duvet cover (

, though this picture doesn't do it justice. We have cream colored sheets, a black pencil post bed, and the other furniture is sort of a light cherry color. The floors are hardwood - the color of old pumpkin pine, almost. The whole effect is kind of cottage, I guess, if I had to name-the-style.

I really like how everything came together (considering I've never really redone a room from scratch like this). But then there's the windows....oy. There are 3 of them, double-hung, about 35" high and 60" high. Two are on one wall and one is on the other. Because it's the master bedroom, we need privacy. We also need light control - it doesn't have to be pitch dark, but we do need something to block the sun in the AM - it shines directly on the bed at about 6 am these days. Right now, we're using a couple sets of old plantation shutters that aren't the right size for the windows, so they're leaning on the floor and covering the lower half of the window (privacy yes, light control no!)

Now - for a variety of reasons, I have been trying to avoid floor-length drapes. We have two dog crates under one window (they have to stay, unfortunately) and two shedding dogs, which means the bottom foot of the curtains near the crates will probably always be hair covered. Plus we have some furniture up tight against the window trim, which doesn't leave a lot of room for drawing the drapes back. And finally, we like to sleep with the windows open and the breezes blowing, so a window treatment that let me lower it from the top would be ideal -- full length drapes across the windows won't let the breezes in.

But here's the problem - I can't find ANY shades that I like. Romans seem too stark and modern. Roller shades are ok, but I don't like the exposed roll at the top, and hanging a poofy valance to cover it just isn't my style. I do have bamboo shades in the rest of the house, but a) they don't provide privacy and b) I'd prefer to not have wood tones at the windows since the window trim is white.

I did find these very cool black wooden rods with big ball finials on clearance at wallyword for $5 so I bought them, figuring I could always return them if I didn't end up using them. And I had an IKEA

linen curtain panel that I had bought in the as-is room for $5 a year or so ago intending to scavenge the fabric for something then I never used it. So I stuck the ikea panel on a tension rod inside the window to see how I would like a full drape -- and it wasn't as bad as I thought. It actually looks very pretty, though it does block the breeze. Its sheer and lets in light, but at night, it does provide complete privacy.

So I was thinking of getting a couple more and using them on the walmart rods, but I'll still need something that I can pull down to block the sun without blocking the breezes - some kind of inside mount shade behind the curtains. I was thinking of black matchstick blinds from target, but I'm not sure if they'll look stupid with white linen curtains -- too much contrast? Plus then I'm wondering why even have the curtains at all - I could just have the blinds and be done with it (though of course, matchstick blinds don't provide great privacy either - I'd have to line them or something). There's also these, but I'm not sure if the green would clash with my walls.

And if I keep the IKEA panels, I'm also not sure about the whole dog-hair-on-the-lower-2-feet-of-the-curtains factor. Oh, and because of the way the furniture is pushed up close to the window trim, I'm thinking that I'll only be able to use one panel per window and pull them to the side, instead of using 2 panels, one on each side of the window. Will that look stupid?

Anyhow, if you made it this far, thanks! If you have any advice for me, I'd sure appreciate it. I'm going to work on getting the pictures up now, so maybe you can picture things better.

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