Are you looking for a way to sharpen up the appearance of your window coverings? Changing your drapes or blinds can make a dramatic difference in your rooms. Depending on your budget, there are several ways to approach this project. Most importantly, decide if you want soft window coverings (e.g. like drapes) or hard treatments (like mini blinds or shades).

 

Let's start with some examples of ways to upgrade the appearance of your windows with drapes. Sheers are an excellent and cost efficient way to customize your windows at a fraction of the expense of many other types of coverings. Sheers look elegant, allow filtered light into a room, and can be used either as a stand alone treatment or in combination beneath a drape. A remarkable advantage to using sheers is that they provide total privacy; you can see outside, but others cannot see into your rooms! Finally, sheers are generally priced the same or even less than most drapes.

 

Another simple and relatively inexpensive decorating strategy is to add valances. Cloth valances come in pinch pleat, balloon, scarf, halo, continental, and embassy. Sometimes, you can just keep your existing drapes and greatly enhance them by adding a valance. These are an exceptional way to top off and highlight both your windows and drapes. You can also use valances atop blinds. Therefore, you would want to match the blind material (either wood or metal) to the valances.

 

Next, you can purchase drapes either unlined or lined. Unlined will be typically less expensive. You can get self lined for insulation and privacy. Self lined or cloth lined offer three great advantages:

 

 

In terms of durability, most drapes and soft coverings should last 15 to 20 years if cared for properly.

 

Hardcoverings like horizontal mini-blinds are yet another consideration. Here, if you have existing blinds, you can add valances to refresh their appearance. If, however, you are purchasing new wood or faux wood blinds, some smart options to think about include using matching cloth tapes to cover the slat ladders. Adding a cloth tape cover to a hardscape really dresses it up. You can sometimes request color matched batons, instead of sometimes having messy hanging cords dangling down. Again, valances work well with blinds.

 

Roller shades offer valances called fascias. Variations of roller shades include ones with different finishes; made from different base cloths; different color lead chains are optional; they come in green, natural, and organic materials without potentially dangerous VOC emissions; and are usually offered in a variety of openness weaves including ones that completely block all light from entering into a room (called blackout).

 

For more information or free fabric sample samples go to the sample request page or "click and connect" to call us.