Things to Consider When Deciding What Window Treatment to Use
When choosing to update your window treatments as part of a remodel job or a new home, you want to take many things in mind to be the perfect type for every room in your home.
Window Treatment Ideas for Your Arizona Home
Each room in your home has specific needs for your window treatments to accomplish, other than, of course, the style and decor as well as being beautiful. You can choose the best window shading products for every room of your home if you understand what solution they are providing for you. Each room should be evaluated for light control, budget, style and decor, insulation, privacy levels, moisture resistance, durability, and your distinct style. This is quite a long list of items to satisfy everyone, but our expertise can make it happen. Read on to dress all of the windows in your home appropriately.
Living Room Window Treatment Ideas
Your top considerations for living room window treatments are:
- Energy efficiency
- Durability
- Style
- Light and heat control
- Custom shapes
Your living room most likely has the largest windows in your home, and you could have several custom-shaped windows to add a level of style and beauty too. This is your space where you entertain guests, making it a great area to show off your fabulous window treatments in the living room. You should ensure your window coverings satisfy all the necessary conditions, exhibit your unique style, and give you complete control over the lighting and temperature.
Specialty-shaped windows such as arches and half-circles are an item of beauty and an interior designer’s dream to dress. You chose to have this architectural delight in your living room, and you want to dress it appropriately. Fortunately, you have some great choices when you decide to have custom window treatments.
Large windows let in a lot of heat and sunshine in the summer, so you must ensure your choices include great energy-efficient items. Also, large windows benefit from certain types of window treatments, and you want to showcase your specialty windows.
Fixed specialty windows look lovely with a fabric that fits perfectly and perhaps has many small pleats. On a fixed specialty window that doesn’t open or close, you can dress it separately from the bottom part, which is most likely rectangular. You can use solar shades in each window for the rectangular windows if there are several in a bank and add motorized window treatments. This allows you to program a time for them to automatically open and close partially or fully at any time you wish. You can also override the programs to open or close your solar shades with a button on a smart device. Solar shades can cut the heat gain, sun, and glare from entering your living room.
So, you have the functionality down pat; now, move on to the style and beautifying options. Custom drapery and decorative side panels are the best options for you when planning your living room window treatments. You can add drapery panels on top of the solar shades as a layering effect to give you depth and dimension and showcase your home. You can choose any fabric from thin and flowing to thick and luxurious because the solar shade takes care of the other considerations and your fabric drapery panels get to be the star of the show. Choosing a patterned fabric can give you a great look if your furnishings are primarily in one color. Instead, you may choose to have a solid color in your drapery panels and then echo the color in some throw pillows, a rug, or upholstered furniture with a pattern. Either of these methods for living room windows in Arizona is the most significant trend for 2021.
Dining Room Window Treatment Ideas
Your dining room window treatments should also have a wow factor, as most homeowners have company in the living room, and when entertaining guests, they may have a meal together for a celebration. Your top considerations for dining room window treatments are:
- Light and heat control
- Style
- Functionality
- Durability
Your dining area may only be used occasionally as a formal dining room, but some families use it for all of their meals too. This means that your window treatments should be durable to last the test of time. In 2021, dining room window treatments were moving toward fabric shades. Roller and Roman shades are very crisp and clean window treatments as they mount inside the frames.
When choosing your fabric, feel free to select anything that you truly love in a pattern or a solid color with perhaps a decorative banding on the bottom. Roller and flat Roman shades appear as a flat sheet of fabric over your window when closed. Roller shades use a winding mechanism at the top, so the extra fabric is not seen when you raise them. If you use roller shades, you will most likely want to add a fabric valance or custom cornice at the top and decorative side panels that coordinate with the top treatment to add color and style to your windows.
If you don’t get a lot of light in your dining room windows and they don’t face a direction with a stunning view, then you may prefer the Roman shades over roller shades. Roman shades have a stack of fabric at the top of the window when raised. For a more formal dining room, you may choose the hobbled Roman shades, which show soft folds when down and raised.
Best Kitchen Window Treatment Ideas
Kitchen window treatments can be tricky because what you choose largely depends on where your windows are located. Your top considerations include the following:
- Style
- Resistance to humidity and water
- Ease of cleaning
- Light control
If your kitchen has a window over the sink area, you need a window treatment that can hold up to humidity and water because occasional splashes happen. In this orientation, it works exceptionally well to use a solar shade made with vinyl-coated fibers. If you get a splash of water or anything else on it, you can wet a microfiber cloth, add a mild dish soap and wipe them clean. You will most likely want to add a pretty patterned valance to the top to give this window some character and texture at the same time. Scalloped bottoms on a kitchen window valance are trendy to soften the hard lines of countertops and hard floor choices.
Other windows not over the sink can also benefit from solar shades to resist humidity, clean easily, and control the heat and sunlight entering your kitchen. You can use a matching or coordinating fabric echoed from the window above the sink in the valance and have drapery panels for the other windows in your kitchen to tie them all together.
Bedroom Window Treatment Ideas
It’s a fact that everyone has better sleep habits when they sleep in a calm and very dark bedroom. In addition, you will want control over these items in your bedroom:
- Privacy
- Style and decor
- Energy efficiency
- Light control
Our summers can be treacherous with all the hot sunlight, and if you enjoy sleeping late or taking a nap during the day, you want to block all the sunlight from entering your bedroom. This in hand also saves on your energy consumption in the dog days of summer. The best window treatments for bedrooms in 2021 satisfy all of these concerns.
You can choose a roller shade for your bedroom windows in a fabric that coordinates with your color palette to aid in privacy and address your style and decor as well as your light control issues. Adding a blackout liner to the back of your roller shade will give you a nice, dark, and cool bedroom. If you choose a patterned roller shade, you may wish to add a solid color valance or cornice at the top to hide the roller mechanism. You may also choose to go the other direction and use patterned fabric for the valance and side drapery panels and a solid color fabric for the roller shade. In addition, you can add stationary drapery side panels in the same solid color and some decorative pillows in the same fabric and paint to tie in the entire bedroom with a decorator’s expertise.
Many homeowners in Scottsdale and Maricopa county LOVE the motorization of their bedroom window treatments. You can program them to open and close whenever you wish or press a button to close the roller shade when you get ready for bed at night or take a nap in the daytime.
It’s fascinating that when you have your window treatments open in the morning to allow sunlight in, it will usually wake you up gracefully for a great start to your morning routine, rather than an alarm clock that wakes you up suddenly and startles you. These are facts based on the natural circadian rhythm that tells us to go to sleep when it’s dark and to wake up when it’s daylight.
Bathroom Window Treatment Ideas
Your bathroom window treatments are essential because you need total privacy in this area of your home, and you should be able to take a nice long bubble bath when you want to, with no issues. Bathroom window treatment considerations are:
- Privacy
- Style and decor
- Durable and resilient
- Humidity and heat resistant
Bathrooms usually have the most heat and humidity, so your window treatments in this area need to handle it all and last for many years to come. Blinds work well in areas of high humidity. You can choose from aluminum, vinyl, or faux wood. The faux wood blinds are specially made to stand up to all things heat and humidity-related. They are stunning, as the wood grain shows, and it is highlighted by your choice of stain or paint color. They resist cracking, peeling, warping, or breaking even with the bathroom’s high humidity levels.
Faux wood blinds can be a standalone bathroom window treatment, or you can add a beautiful fabric valance, perhaps with scalloped edges to soften the hard lines of the bathroom. You can add fabric valance or side drapery panels in this instance also to add some color and style to your bathrooms.
Other Considerations for Arizona Window Treatments
Other considerations may help you decide what type of window treatments you seek. Be aware that some fabrics need to be cleaned professionally, while others are easy to care for and can be washed and dried at home. When you choose fabric window treatments, you may need to clean them in the kitchen every so often.
Your type of colors also affects how your room appears. In larger rooms, if you use darker colors, it will make it seem homier and more inviting. Using cooler colors will make a room look larger and brighter.
Cordless window treatments of all types are excellent and give you much cleaner lines than the older corded versions. Dangling cords can look messy, and they can also make opening and closing a window treatment a royal pain when part of the window covering rises more than the other, and you need to let them down and back up again to try to get them to be evenly raised on both ends.
Cordless windows operate by either automation (the best of the best) or by grasping the bottom rail in the middle of the window treatment and lifting it to raise it or pulling it down to lower it.
These tips and ideas should get your creative juices flowing for the best window treatments for your Arizona home in 2021. The trends lean toward controlling your light, heat gain, glare, privacy, moisture resistance, and durability with a hard treatment and then adding a soft fabric treatment to soften and balance out the lines in every room in your home.
