Bathroom Window Treatments for Any Decor
No matter the size of your bathroom or where in your home it’s located, you can add custom window treatments that blend in perfectly with all your decor. At times, it looks best to have some color and print in your window; at other times, it’s best to stick to a solid color. These items all depend on the lines of your bathroom and what will complement them most.
Improve your Bathroom with Bathroom Window Treatments
Your bathroom window treatments in a guest bathroom, a half bathroom, or a master bathroom can convey any type of feeling, from playful and cute to extremely relaxing in the master bath, where you have a lovely soaking tub. Some bathroom window treatments work better than others depending on where your bathtub is located and if it’s a free-standing, claw foot type or a built-in type against a wall. It also depends on which way your bathroom window faces and if it’s on the second floor or the first floor for your privacy.
A Quick Guide on Bathroom Window Treatments
There are many different window treatments on the market today, so many items can choose from in any bathroom. You can choose from many different styles, such as shades, roller blinds, drapery panels, and shutters, and even mix and match styles to achieve your desired appearance. After choosing the type of window covering that you like best for your area, you can choose the style, color, patterns, or fabrics that make it shine. Read on our blog about Your Ultimate Guide to Bathroom Window Treatments in Scottsdale for a more detailed guide.
Why Should you Install Window Treatments in your Bathroom?
In some cases, in smaller homes, there may be a powder room, half bath, or a guest bathroom that doesn’t have any windows at all. So, if you have some lovely large windows, as is customary in our area, you should celebrate the idea of having natural light in your bathrooms and dress the windows appropriately. First-floor bathroom windows definitely need to be covered so you can protect your privacy, especially if they face the street or a next-door neighbor’s home. Second-floor bathrooms can get away with dressing just the lower half of the window, depending on what direction they face.
Another reason why you should install window treatments in your bathroom is for light control. If the sunlight blares in your windows in the heat of the summer, it can make it too bright and definitely too warm in your bathroom to even think about a warm bath or shower, much less putting on makeup to go out on the town.
Thirdly, you must ensure that your bathroom window treatments are durable to withstand the heat and moisture from nice long showers and soak in the tub while you find your private time to relax in a bubble bath.
Great Examples of Bathroom Window Treatments
You can choose any style of window coverings for your bathroom, including modern, contemporary, or country style, as well as styles that work well for small bathrooms or specialty-shaped windows. You should try to make your window treatments complement the style of your entire bathroom, including your flooring, bathtub, countertops, and even your hardware, if possible. In addition, any type of window treatment sends out vibes as they evoke some sort of mood or feeling. It’s a tall order to achieve all of these qualities in one product, but it certainly is attainable with all the products on the market today.
Relaxed Windows with Fabric Shades
You can create a serene atmosphere of total relaxation with the hobbled Roman shade or a soft fold Roman shade, as it is commonly called. This type of shade is made from fabric to give you literally thousands of choices in colors, patterns, and thicknesses from which to choose. When this type of shade is down and also when it’s up, you will see soft, delicate folds for a relaxed feeling that is laid back and gentle. When you raise the soft folds, you can allow light and views to the outside as well as views inside your bathroom. This type of shade will drape in a single swag on narrow windows, and on wider windows, they will have two or more swags. A printed fabric of any sort will give your Roman blinds a fun flourish, and you can add a liner to keep the fabric from deteriorating in the bright sunlight without blocking all the light, so they act as a light-filtering window covering. Roman shades for the bathroom add softness to your hard surfaces and absorb sound for a peaceful time that you can have all to yourself. It works best to choose a mildew-resistant fabric that is easy to spot clean in a style and fabric with similar tones that you already have in your bathroom.
Balloon Shades Combined with Side Drapery Panels
This combination works well for windows that have a generous block of glass to frame. The balloon shades drape gracefully at the top of the bank of windows, and the windows are framed with decorative side drapery panels on each side of the bank of windows. This is a very formal feeling appearance that works exceptionally well in a master bathroom that is spacious with a free-standing claw foot bathtub to add the grandeur that it needs. This type of combination of layers softens hard spaces and provides a sophisticated backdrop for your other attributes, such as a marble shower or a chandelier. You may choose a print if you want to, but you should only use a print in the balloon valance at the top and stick to a solid color for the drapery panels. It also adds to the formal and elegant appearance if your side drapery panels are floor length and barely kiss the floor.
Shutters for a Low-Maintenance Solution
Indoor plantation shutters always add sophistication to any space. Recently, these have been used widely in bathrooms for their low maintenance and streamlined appearances and the fabulous qualities of their fabrication that will not warp, crack, or mildew. Shutters are practical and handsome, and when you choose a faux wood material, they are quite durable in a bathroom and will hold up even though this room has a lot of heat and humidity. One great suggestion is to have your shutters hung in the tier-on-tier orientation. This is when you have one set of two shutters to cover the top half of a window and another set of two shutters to cover the bottom half of a window. Each set operates independently of the other, enabling you to open the top set to let in natural light and keep the bottom closed for privacy. You may also choose any color you like on indoor shutters because they can be painted or stained in any color you desire. If you are still yearning for a pop of color to match other items in your bathroom, you can opt to have decorative cloth tapes on your shutters when you choose custom window treatments. You may also install your shutters to cover only the bottom half of your windows and leave the top open like a cafe-style window treatment to access beautiful natural light. Faux wood shutters are the warrior for any bathroom.
Woven Wood Shades are Relaxed
Woven wood shades add an additional layer of texture to your bathroom with a beach-type theme. These window coverings work well in a casual or contemporary bathroom to add visual interest. Between the weaves, you will have soft filtered light that is allowed in a while, blocking most of the light and heat in the summer when they are down. They still give you privacy, but not total privacy when they are down. If this is an issue, you can easily have them custom-made and consider adding a blackout liner to the rear of them. Another great feature of woven wood shades is that you can have them in the top-down, bottom-up feature. This allows you to open only the top or only the bottom for the privacy you need and the natural sunlight you crave.
Fixed Balloon Shades for Softness
Fixed balloon shades are not operable and only cover an area at the top of windows, making them a perfect choice for an upstairs master bedroom where privacy isn’t an issue. This window treatment works wonders in windows that don’t have a lot of suns. You can use color and patterns to introduce softness to your clean hard lines of marble countertops and marble or tile floors. Fixed balloon shades have a series of soft and beautiful swoops in the windows for a decorative yet elegant appearance. It’s important to note that you want to mount the shades over the top trim of your windows, so you can open and close the windows easily when the weather is nice outdoors. Your fabric of choice for balloon shades should be something that will hold up well with humidity, such as cotton.
Cafe Curtains: A Quaint Solution
Cafe curtains are cheerful and quaint, giving you both natural light and privacy. Your view remains intact, but you also gain some modest privacy with this window treatment style. Most often, cafe curtains are made of lightweight fabrics that will blur images in your bathroom from outside, but passersby can still see silhouettes. These work well on a second-story bathroom window or your window away from the street and neighbors. You can choose a thicker fabric and still have the classic appearance of cafe curtains covering only the bottom half of your bathroom windows. Of course, you can also add a valance at the top of cafe curtains, which will change the style slightly but will only leave a few inches of your windows uncovered on the top half.
Roller Shades to the Rescue: Temperature and Light Control
To control the light and temperature in your bathroom, you might consider a roller shade in a thick linen fabric. Roller shades are usually mounted inside the window frame to present you with clean lines, and the thicker linen fabric is a wonder when it comes to keeping cold or hot air outside from entering your bathroom as well as controlling light. This type of window covering allows you to raise or lower it very easily to any height that you wish.
Add a Touch of Romance to Your Bathroom
Light and lacy fabrics add a whimsical touch of lace, loveliness, and softness to any window. Lace drapery panels work well as a stand-alone window treatment if you don’t get much light in your windows and have no privacy concerns. However, you can also use lace drapery panels on top of another type of window treatment to address the warm sunlight entering your space or as a privacy factor. Lace drapery panels pair well with any type of first layer of window treatments, such as roller shades or Roman shades, as well as blinds.
Small Bathroom Windows Still Need Dressing
Even if you have a guest bathroom or a powder room that is small size, they still beg to be dressed so that they appear completed and finished. Naked windows just don’t look good no matter what type of room they are in and no matter the size. Chances are that if you have a half bath or a small bathroom, the main color palette is most likely white to make the room appear larger than it actually is.
Roman Shades to the Rescue
A Roman shade works great in small windows; you can choose something with some color in it for interest and a pop of color. Maybe you would like a simple stripe that alternates with white as an accent color, but remember not to choose thin stripes, or they will make your bathroom appear much smaller. It’s also a good idea to use a vertical stripe rather than a horizontal stripe to make your window appear taller and larger.
Zebra Blinds for Filtering Light
Another great solution for narrow windows is a zebra-type blind in a horizontal orientation. This type of blind has alternating stripes of a light fabric and a printed or colored fabric in stripes of the same size. This design allows you to have incoming light through the light fabric but blocks the light with the thicker fabric. Choosing for the stripes to be horizontal will make the narrow window in any space seem wider than it actually is.
Small but Mighty Faux Wood Shutters
Faux wood shutters look lovely in a small bathroom window. They hold up well to the humidity and heat and provide light control by opening or closing them or simply adjusting the slats. Faux wood shutters, when closed, give you the perfect privacy in a window treatment, and they also trap hot summer sunlight next to the window, so your small space is comfortable.
Other Ideas and Tips for Your Bathroom Windows
Unusual and interesting-shaped windows lend an architectural aspect to any bathroom, no matter its size. Sometimes, this may seem to be a challenge as to how you should dress them. When you choose custom window treatments, you have many options to fit your beautifully designed windows as your portals to the outside world.
Dressing the Arches
Arched windows are loved by all, but the objective is to accent your arch in them and not to cover them up. A great solution is to use beautiful faux wood shutters that mount inside the window frame to accent and heighten the beauty of this shape. You can use two solid panels or have the arched portion in an additional pair of shutter panels to add an even more aesthetically pleasing structure to your bathroom.
An Addition to Contemporary or Classic Decor
If your bathroom decor is mainly contemporary or classic, it will most likely have subdued tones throughout it in natural colors such as white, off-white, or maybe a shade of tan or light color. Adding a pop of color to your window treatments will look much better if you have mainly one neutral color in your bathroom scheme. To accomplish this, you don’t need to cover your entire window in a colorful or playful print, but you can add a decorative fabric to the bottom of a roller or Roman shade or have your shutters trimmed in a bright and brilliant hue. After you decide on this aspect, it will tie the entire bathroom together to add towels of the same color or a bathroom rug.
Window Coverings for Angled Ceilings
If you have lovely angled ceilings in your home with windows in them, the windows are likely shaped differently than a plain rectangle, square or simple shape. These may seem to be a challenge, but you have several options from which to choose.
Woven wood shades allow you to have one shade on the bottom part of a window that is perhaps a rectangle and a separate shade on the top, which covers the angled area as a stationary long valance. This allows the bottom half to be operable while the top stays in place. This same idea of a two-part window covering works as well for using Roman shades, plantation shutters, and cellular shades to cover your angles in your windows in an angled ceiling.
Extra large windows that reach from the ceiling to the floor in your bathroom look amazing with roller shades. You can choose a light filtering product, a sheer product, or anywhere in between to have the privacy level, sunlight, and heat control to keep your space comfortable.
Can I DIY Bathroom Window Treatments?
In some cases, you can definitely do your own bathroom window treatments if several conditions exist, such as:
- Only 1 or 2 windows
If you only cover one to two windows, the DIY route may save you a few dollars in total over hiring a pro. - Short timeline
If you are in a rush to install your window treatments for a particular event or holiday with guests in your home, then you may want to DIY your window treatments. - Blinds or shades
If you want to use blinds or shades and your windows are square or rectangular in a standard size, then you may be able to install them yourself with some simple brackets and just a few screws. - You have your own tools
If you have your own tools, including a steel tape measure, a screwdriver, a drill, and a ladder tall enough to reach your windows, then you can attempt to DIY them yourself.
The reality is that there are no actual “standard” size windows in homes anymore. If you measure your windows incorrectly and get the wrong size of blind or shades, they may not fit your window, resulting in installing them in an odd manner that doesn’t look the best just to get the job done.
When you choose to have custom window treatments, you can choose from a huge variety of products and looks for your bathroom. You get to see and feel the products and a rendering showing exactly what they will look like in your windows. You can also rest assured that a professional will install your window coverings correctly and are guaranteed to fit perfectly. This gives you a turnkey product in which the hardest work that you have to do—is to decide exactly what appearance you desire.
