Curtains are like the perfect blazer that completes an outfit. Without curtains, a room can feel unfinished. Great window treatments aren’t just decorative, they add function and practicalities to a space. By measuring the right length and proper mounting techniques, window treatments can offer privacy, frame a worthy view, soft outdoor light, provide insulation, and protect your furniture from the sun.
Choosing curtains is much more than just picking a fabric you like and hoping it looks good in your room. There are a million small factors that can go wrong in the selection of curtains for your space: Do they provide the right level of privacy? Does their style match the architecture of your home? These are questions that interior designers have mastered through education or trial and error. This makes them experts at designing custom curtains for their clients that look much more high-end than they might be. Luckily, there are a few handy rules to follow to ensure window treatments will be perfect for spaces. Follow our foolproof guide on how to choose curtains to make them look like a million bucks!
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Consider curtain uses
One of the main considerations when choosing a curtain is the purpose you’ll need your window treatments to serve in a specific room: Do you need blackout curtains for the bedroom? Are you looking for your curtains to let natural light through? Do you need privacy from neighbors? Once you’ve figured this part out, you can start narrowing down your choices.
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Choose the Curtain Fabric
Curtains are available in a huge variety of fabrics, from lush velvet to relaxed linen. When choosing a curtain fabric, the interior style and the actual purpose of the curtain are the two main considerations. We can start with the choice of blackout or light-filtering.
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Room Darkening Curtains
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If you are looking for curtains that will keep morning light out and help regulate room temperature, heavier opaque fabrics such as velvet or fabric with inner shading layers are a good choice. blackout curtains are lined with a material that will keep room darkening, making them an excellent choice.
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Light Filtering Curtains
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For curtains that let in plenty of natural light, diffusing direct sunlight and creating soft lighting. Thinner and lighter fabrics such as cotton or polyester are good material of light filtering window treatments.
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Play with Color and Pattern
After deciding the curtain use, you can then think about the more interesting parts. Curtains are an ideal way to add dimension to any design. Because they’re available in a wide variety of colors and patterns, you can find curtains that make a dramatic statement. If your room features primarily neutral shades, add curtains in a bold color like bright red or rich emerald to mix things up. You can also use curtains in a neutral color like white, tan or gray to tone down a bright room design. Curtains in an eye-catching pattern like stripes, animal prints or floral designs can make a bland room with solid colors have a little more life.
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Attach importance to ventilation
Ventilation affects our health. To keep the indoor carbon dioxide at a safe level, the best way is to open windows to ventilate and let fresh air in! If there are windows in the northeast and southwest, open the window regularly every day. Making the fresh outside air take away the indoor dirty air to achieve the air convection of the whole house. Protecting people from getting sick! Recommend window treatments with good ventilation and sunlight adjustment function, such as blinds or TDBU cellular shades.
– Blinds – -TDBU cellular shades –
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Sun protection countermeasures of east and west-facing room
It is a great living environment when there is sunshine coming into the house. Sunshine is natural lighting, and it keeps the room dry and mildew-proof. However, too much sun exposure will affect our sleep and make the room overheated. The key to choosing a facing east side curtain is to consider your work rest cycle. It is better to choose more than 90% opacity. And people who usually wake up late have a higher level of shading required.
For the curtains in the west-facing room, opacity 80% is enough for most people to sleep. The west-facing room has less impact on sleep due to the different exposure time, but the afternoon sunshine would damage furniture and make the indoor temperature too high. The better way to solve this problem is choosing the window treatment that has good ventilation and lighting control. Instead of using high opacity fabric, make the room dark all day, good ventilation and adjusting incoming light angles to guide the light into an indirect light source will be the best countermeasure to the west-facing room.
Curtains don’t just serve the purpose of regulating light, they’re a great way to add a layer of texture, color and pattern to a room that feels unfinished, highlight windows that have an interesting architectural detail and create a cozier and warmer atmosphere.
