Seeking input. I am helping my widowed MIL transition from her family home of over 50 years, to a condo. I am trying to square it away while she is off in Florida, and I am also 1600 miles away from the project at this time.

If you can see from the photos, the area is an open concept living room, dining room, and kitchen with an island. You can even see the entrance hall in the background of one of the photos. SIL already arranged for and install pleated shades per the wishes of my MIL and IMO adding drapery panels will soften the space and better embrace her styling. Is it perfect? No, it is a home and it contains important items a decorator would never seek out (and yes, the plastic is coming off the lamp shades, the art over the couch will be lowered, oversized coffee table is arriving at the end of May, and I am getting a new transitional dining chandelier).

So, I have spoken with a decorator about the drapes and we are not seeing eye to eye….yet.

Challenges as my mind sees it.

1) The two windows in the dining area must be handled the same.

2) The left window of the dining area is the window immediately to the right of the couch and IMO that window must balance the window to the left of the couch.

3) The pair of windows in the corner are made of one on the right that is the left hand side of the couch, and the left window that must balance the right window (Notice, that IMO so far 4 windows must be paneled in a matching way)

4) At the end of the room, there is a large central window with the left hand side of the corner window on its right, and then a door to the left, as well as light switches that logically should remain accessible and an area of wall space between the two windows.

There are two versions currently in the table (Note: that both options are using pleated draperies on rings – pleat type not yet discussed and door is being ignored):

OPTION 1:

The first would treat the end of the room as well as the whole corner as one “window” area with a single L shaped rod running from the left edge of the large end window, to the corner and then to the right edge of the right hand corner window (left side of couch). There would be two finals. One at the left end, and one at the right. I have been told that this single “L” rod is necessary because otherwise the area will be “too busy”.

Each of the remaining two windows would have a single rod, with each having its own two finals.

The proposed panel design would be a single panel width at every drapery end (ie any location with a finial), then two panel widths bending through the inside corner, and two panel widths dressing the right side of the large end window, the wall space, and the left side of the left corner window.

An issue I have with option 1 is the frequency of the finials. There will be many finials in one part of the room (dining area) and then very few in the rest (“L” rod). I am wondering if that will feel unbalanced, especially since technically, four of the windows are the same size (two dining and two corner). Another issue relates to the coverage of the single vs double panels. One double panel, making up the inside corner, could technically stack over more of the window than any of the single panels (but not by much so this really is not a deal breaker). The second double panel is having to cover the 8” of the wall, plus the sides of two windows. So it will logically cover LESS of the actual window than any of the single panels and get highlighted by the window grills. All and all, I believe Option 1 is going to have a number of windows with imbalanced panels.

OPTION 2:

In this scenario, the concerning “busy-ness” that led us to the challenging “L” shaped rod solution would get de-cluttered by having no finials and using clean mitered French return rods. In this case, the two dining windows would each have their own single rod. The large end window would also have its own single rod. And the corner window pair would share a single mitered French return corner rod. The returns would need to be mounted tightly aligned with the outer window moulding. By not expanding outward into the wall space, there will be reasonable symmetry in panels of the corner window (2 singles and 1 double), will allow sufficient space between the rods of the two end windows so they may be treated separately and not become “cluttered”, and allow the light switches to remain easily visible/accessible.

For the panels, the inner corner window pair will have a double width panel that dresses the inner side of each window. The outer sides of the corner windows, along with both sides of the single dining windows, will all have a single width panels. The panel width on the now single large end window is still to be determined. Should it be a single width, or would it be a 1.5 or 2 due to its greater width? The negatives are giving up the formal finials and also the risk of two window and their rods too close and creating clutter.

Anyone have opinions or new suggestions? The currently panels are called “semi-custom” and only come in select widths. I am waiting for those measurement options so I can better evaluate these design options.

TIA

PS The paper on the carpet is a cutout of the coming coffee table and my grandson has run across it a few times. :P