I like bare French doors. Love them. They are the treatment.

Before I changed around my family room , I did have baloony type valances in there and then the same fabric was used for a cover over a shirred rod valance over the vertical blinds and over the sink window. It did look very nice, and did tie in the pattern. So it was the same but different so to speak.
That was about 5 years ago when I kind of changed my family room around.
Presently, I only have white wood blinds (I mean faux wood ) in the family room, the same (very yucky I might add) verticals over the patio door, and faux wood blinds over the sink window.

Currently, I have NO WT's in the kitchen, so I am not one to talk, but, in a previous home I had balloons on my breakfast window's and the same fabric on the french doors, but shirred on a rods in that hour glass look, pulled in the middle. I have sen other homes that do one treatment on the kitchen window and use roman shades on the french doors in the smae fabric. You could even do a faux roman shade if you don't think you need a working one.

I guess I prefer either no wts or panels to the side on French doors.

Meg,
My best advice is to follow your own heart on what you want. I worked with a designer many, many years ago when I thought I could not possibly pull off any of my own ideas. I bought carpeting, draperies and many other very expensive items through her. Many of those are long gone, but the rooms she did were never really "me". So please don't let someone talk you into something because they think it will look the best.
I have a slider in my kitchen and french doors from the family room leading to the sunroom. I have a valence over the kitchen window. I love having no treatments on the doors. In fact on both, they set it up so I could put blinds in between the glass and I never did.
Some people like closing everything at night so that would be another consideration for you. We back into the woods and it doesn't bother me to sit in my kitchen at night with nothing on the doors. I have a friend with vertical blinds and she closes all of them when the sun goes down.
I would think that would be a major consideration as to whether or not you choose window treatments. I am posting a few pics I already have - the family room one only shows half of the french door. Sorry I don't have time to do more photos at the moment. Hope this helps!

Thanks for your comments everyone.

As far as the privacy issues go, we don't really have any as the back of our house faces a "treed" area. There are houses across the way, but we don't feel exposed. WTs might be nice to keep the heat in, but I don't think the woven-wood blinds the designer is talking about will serve that purpose. I like the idea of panels to the sides of the double French doors and will have to research that idea. For the two single French doors, can you do the same?

I'm still stuck thinking about what kind of jacobean or paisley material will work in the kitchen AND will also work in our family room. But maybe it's time to think stripes. Or maybe a solid with contast piping.

Thanks again for helping me through yet another design problem. It's always so helpful to bounce these things around.

Meg,
Jejvtr was going to do some sort of treatment for her kitchen window awhile back. Her kitchen is sort of craftsman/A&C, but I think her fabric was Jacobean, IIRC. Maybe you could get her to show you what she did. Also, Designer Fabric Online (or maybe it's Designer Fabrics Online?) has some tussah silks, damasks, and chenilles that would coordinate well. Have you looked at their online site? I keep thinking you should try to incorporate a brown that is similar to the tone of your cabinets and your accent tiles with your other browns and blues, but that's just me. :>) BTW, did you already look at the Pate-Meadows site for valance shape ideas?

Meg,
I saw photos of your kitchen in another post. I would definitely looke at the Pate-Meadows site as Kitchendetective suggested. There are some beautiful valence patterns there. My window is very small so I just made a simple valence. With your double window, you could really have a gorgeous, stand-out WT. Personally, I don't see the need for WT on the sides of french doors. For me, they just don't serve a purpose unless you need to close them for privacy.

Thanks guys. I did check out Pate-Meadows but, with my limited space issues, I didn't think about treatments that needed a rod. I guess I can do an "L" bracket so I need to re-examine the options.

I haven't checked out that fabric site (I think), so thanks for the suggestion. If I'm going to use the same fabric in all three rooms, then a brown or amber background might be the best option.

Thanks for all your help!

Hey kitchendetective!

Check out the striped fabric on these chairs. It's not the floral or jacobean I was envisioning, but do you think it would work? Maybe for chair cushions if not window treatments.

Here is a link that might be useful: chandelier thread

I see great minds think alike! I was just playing with the wt and the brown background really does help tie it together. I think also, that if you look for a print that has a bit of an A&C feel to it, say Art Nouveau, it also works very well.

Another thing, is that the shape of the style you are thinking of (kind of a rectangle draped with a soft curve) echoes the rectangular crown on the cabinets, esp with some wide-ish trim along the bottom. I know someone with this style of valance and they do remind me of your cabs. Their's is segmented at one drape per window, so two in your case.

I think the virtual I did with your fabric (first ones) are a bit more flouncy than intended. Here's another shot at it with some A&C in the fabric and a brown background that connects the cabs.

Click to enlarge. HTH

{{!gwi}}

Very nice Squirrelheaven! I like the fabric, too.

I can't tell you how much I appreciate your photoshopping this for me. All I can say now is that I am thoroughly confused. (Poor DH. I'm afraid we'll end up being in this house for years before we're done decorating--especially the WTs.)

The bottom line so far is that if I decide to leave the French doors bare, then I can do any fabric I want in the kitchen. No more worries about unifying the rooms or finding a fabric that works in all three rooms.

And as to the kitchen WT style, I'll continue to look for a compromise that is a little curvy but that might also echo the lines of the cabinets. Since so much of what we have is traditional and curvy and we're not trying for an authentic A&C house, I don't think I'm forced to do completely boxy.

Again, thanks for your help! What are you doing up??

You'll get it eventually. Best to find what you like than what the designer likes!

You're welcome :) (Starbucks I think.)

Good morning. Here I am escaping all responsibilities, but, hey, my back hurts. SQH--I was having exactly the same thoughts about something Nouveau-y (pretty nouveauy word, huh?) There is actually a William Morris pattern with Irises, but I cannot recall colors. Probably too many. My eyes are still fuzzing up, but that PS mock-up looks like a medallion print jacquard? I looked at a few of those for Meg and they seem quite promising. That dining room chair fabric would probably work, but no decisions until all fabric candidates can be visualized together. I might like something crisper than the taupe background--at least how it appears on my monitor. I'm off to the coffee maker. Ladies, and others, let's roll up our sleeves and get to work on Meg's place today...

Good morning kitchendetective--and SH wherever you are!

I'm flattered that you want to "work on my place" today, but I really don't want to take your time--or more time than I have already. And I certainly don't want to take you away from your responsibilities. (My own "to do" list is looming ever larger.)

When I wrote those two posts about our kitchen WT, I was feeling particularly low and confused. The designer's negative attitude made me feel like giving up--on decorating, on my vision, etc.--so I came here to you pros for a reality check. And you've been wonderful!

A week of fabric hunting next week and then another meeting with the designer should do it, I would think. If she continues to say "no" then it's probably time to move on, or interview someone else and see if it's me and not "them." It's such a weird relationship to navigate; I'm hiring someone for their expertise but don't agree with what she's telling me. But who am I to argue with her?

So . . . thank you all for your support and time. I'm going to attack my to do list now and will try to stop feeling sorry for myself or obsessing about issues that, in the scheme of things, are relatively unimportant.

PS How weird is it that my back hurts, too? I'm not sure what you're going through but my lower back has been in a spasm for about three days now. I hope you feel better soon!

Thanks for the well wishes. Haven't had this spasm-type thing before. Yuck. Anyway, see if any of these speak to you at below site.
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I hope these numbers are enough identifying info.

Here is a link that might be useful: Designer Fabrics

Thanks Kitchen! There are some beautiful fabrics there, but I especially like this one--assuming the background is the right color. It looks like it picks up the amber of our cabinets:

What do you think of these? (Again, who knows what they look like IRL--which is part of the reason I think I may give up looking for fabrics and rugs online.)

Okay, I better get going on my list of things to do. Thanks again for all your help!

They're great. I especially like the first; given the right places and amounts, I like 'em all. The fourth is a bit A&C, too! It shows up a bit turquoise, rather than blue-gray, but it's great. I have a question: Are the French doors in the eating area?

Meg, I love! that one (first). That's very much the same as the one in the virtual, except in reverse and amber not chocolate. The Art Nouveau pattern looked great in your kitchen, imo.

Well, so much for my list. LOL. I'm sure I'll be mortified when my guests arrive and the house is still a shambles. Why can't I get motivated?

To answer your question, we have a set of double French doors in the eating area, and then two single French doors that flank the fireplace in the family room. Here are the doors in the eating area--again from post-construction:

And here are the doors and fireplace in the family room:

And here's the view from the kitchen, toward the eating area and the family room. (It's hard to get a good photo of all three areas.)

When you say the fourth, are you counting the one from designer fabric?--the one you found? I don't think you mean the last one because that one doesn't look turquoise to me at all, although I guess it all depends on our monitor settings. I, of course, still love the second one, the cobalt background, and am impatiently waiting for a sample.

SH: the pattern of the first sort of echoes the vines in our current family room rug. (Am vaguely thinking of ditching it and starting over.) I have no idea about whether the colors will work although the amber is sort of like one of the colors in our slate fireplace surround.

Okay, I really, really have to start cleaning!

Here is a link that might be useful: supposedly

Woops. That was supposed to be a link to our supposedly one of a kind hand-knotted rug, currently in our family room. A local rug store kindly gave me the link to the online vendor. Ugh!

Okay, yes, I was talking from the very first (Designer Fabrics sample). The two photos immediately above, they are two different rugs, no? If SQH has time, maybe she could show fabrics 1, 2, and 5 next to the rugs. Anyhow, back to trying to get stuff done.

They're actually the same rug, but the rug is folded in the bottom photo. In the close-up, you can see what little blue is in the rug, although IRL it looks gray sometimes.

No need for SH to do that since I'm not sure I'm even going to keep the rug. Store misled me about what it was and then I found this rug which has a truer blue, although again not much of it.

Not sure this one will look as good with our fireplace. OMG I'm a crazy person.

Here's an update. I went to NY this weekend and looked again at the rugs shown above--or I would have if the store hadn't sold both rugs. One was still there getting ready to be shipped out but the other, the second one, was long gone. Guess I'm going to have to order a smaller version to see how it will look in our house.

And, in the meantime, I found yet another jacobean fabric for our kitchen window treatment:

And the hunt continues.