Ok in fairness I didn't read all the comments on this, but personally I find everything looks good in silk. I have silk drapes in 80% of my rooms and I love them. They are a steal at JcPenney (online) panels around 30 each. I also have pottery barn, they are basically the same except 4 times the price. My homemade ones are the very best but that is a whole different thread and I think my sewing days are behind me until my kids are grown, a million years from now. And Im guessing you arent a seamstress. For a guest room, be a hero and get a set of blackout liner for behind the curtains like hotels have. And all the bedrooms in my house have these b/c I am not on good terms with early morning and I hope my kids pick up the hint by sleeping in caves as well. I think you can get these at target, maybe Bed Bath and Beyond. The other treatment I am fond of is these dark matchstick (tortoise shell) blinds I have in my oldest sons room. Very masculine and cool. However, I added blackout liner to them and that was a major pain. Look neat though. Got those at target but I dont think they have them anymore. Those temp blinds are horrible. Seriously horrible. If I went to visit someone with them, Id go to a hotel. No offense to anyone who wants to give you time to think, but they are just a pain and you are clearly interested in solving the problem- so solve it!

Thanks ckinkopf for your ideas and thoughts. Glad you think it will look okay when we are all done. I think you are the first poster to mention we should have done darker windows, although I have thought that. Ignoring the windows for now is likely what we will do as I am out of ideas for repeating the white. Most of our windows are fiberglass which can certainly be painted. The basement windows and two others on the house are vinyl which I would be more reluctant to paint. The vinyl windows were bought 5 years ago and won't last as long as the fiberglass, so maybe in 10-15 years if they need replacing, we will swap them out for fiberglass and then paint them all a grey to match the window trim. At that point we would need to repaint the siding anyway so we would need scaffolding. Yikes, I hope we finish this reno by the time we need to repaint it all!!!

Thanks for the suggestion mama_goose. Unfortunately, all those together won't fit in the wall or would be visible outside the wall. I think I'm going to contact a sheet metal fabricator this week about building something custom for me. I saw a dryer vent at lowes today like this http://mobile.appliancezone.com/ShowProduct.aspx?ID=27&gclid=Cj0KEQjw2v2sBRCazKGu3tSFz64BEiQAKIE1hrUqGkCzH9CteW0uzwboZ0V4dncYi52xzIoiJIx5WSIaApw48P8HAQ and I think something like this would work fine. Just build it where I could cut the bottom of the ducting off and slide it over. The hole would likely have to be offset, but if they're fabricating it, I'm sure we could get it to work.

I have a warm and cozy home thats located on the south side of chicago, unfortunately we have been invaded by gang bangers and have a murder about every 3 minutes. Any suggestions on gang banger proof glass?