Three Things to Do Before Picking a Window Treatment

The window treatments in your home are the pieces that tie all of the other pieces in the room together.  When you have multiple colors or patterns in the rugs and furniture, the window treatments are where they will all be matched and made into a comprehensive room.  For this reason, you need to take your time with your window treatments and make sure that everything is in order or else the room will not look the way that you want it to.  If you take these three steps, your window treatments will be the capstone of the room that you are looking for.

Understand The Design

The first thing that you must consider is how the room is going to be designed and what kind of feel you want the room to have.  If you are a casual family and plan to have a lot of children come over or have large gatherings, your best choice is to use a set of simple curtains.  Curtains are designed for casual use, and you can get them made out of any fabric that you want, so there are virtually no limits on the design.  If you are planning to have a more formal room for adults, your best choice is a set of drapes.  Drapes tend to be heavier and darker than curtains, lending to a more formal feel to the room.

Choose The Colors

The window treatments should be the last thing that you put into your room because there are so many options when it comes to choosing the color.  First make certain that you are happy with the more costly items, such as furniture and decorations, and then you will have some idea of what color you want your window treatments to be.  Remember, the window treatments should tie the room together, so you should be on the lookout for window treatments that either complement the other colors in the room’s palette, or you can choose to go with window treatments that have a counter color to the rest of the room.  In either case, by waiting until you have the rest of the room designed, your window treatments will have more of an impact on the rest of the room.

Make The Installation

Putting up a window treatment might sound like an easy task, but there are a lot of things that you need to do correctly, otherwise, the treatment will collapse.  If you do not have experience with this type of work, it is advisable to hire someone to make the installation for you.  If you are going to do it on your own, take careful measurements of the window space, make sure that you anchor the rods to studs in the walls and make certain there is enough support for the weight of the treatment.  You should also consider installing a valance to go over the top of the treatment so the hardware that holds the rods in place is not visible to people in the room.  With a valance, your room will have a much more sleek and sophisticated feel than it would if the rods were left out in the open.

Window treatments are the place where you have a lot of freedom to do the things that you want with your room, and they are a great way to make sure that all of the elements of the room come together to make a comprehensive whole.  If this is the first time that you are designing a room, the aid of an interior designer will be priceless, and even the cost of the designer will be worth it.  You want a room that you can be proud of, and sometimes that means hiring a professional.

I am Dave Bradley, a retired interior design consultant and expert in window treatments.  I often got called in to take care of problems that arise when people try to take care of their own window treatment installations, and when it comes to the window treatments residents put up, I have seen a lot of mistakes, so I wrote this article as a guide for new homeowners.  Though you might want to try to do the job yourself, you will have a much better experience if you hire someone like the designers at www.heritagedesigninteriors.com to take the hassle out of window treatment design and installation.