Introduction
Different types of windows often call for different curtain and blind solutions. A bay window, a skylight, a dormer, or a French door each has its own practical limits, especially where light, movement, and space are concerned. Some windows suit full-length curtains, while others work better with Roman blinds, roller blinds, or simple valances. The right window covering can also help manage sunlight, heat, and energy use, as explained by the U.S. Department of Energy. The aim is always the same: choose a treatment that fits the opening without causing obstruction or looking out of scale.
Bay Window Curtain Ideas
A bay window can be the setting for elaborate treatments, usually with floor-length curtains.
Curtains for Bay Windows
A curtain track must be bent around the window. For the best results, a corded track should be measured, bent, and fitted professionally. There are DIY bendable tracks available, but these can cause problems as the curtains run unwillingly around the angled corners. It is possible to screw the track to the window’s architrave, but it is then visible and can be unsightly.
For a more satisfactory solution, suspend it from a pelmet board. The track can then be hidden by a pelmet, valance, or covered fascia. There are two ways of treating the three panels of a bay window. A pair of curtains can be hung at each section and draped back with tiebacks, or one pair of wide curtains can be drawn back to either side, leaving the window free.
Blinds for Bay Windows
Roman or pull-up blinds work well on bay windows. The fittings are much simpler than those for curtains, radiators or window seats pose no problems, and cording can be carried across the top of the window to be operated by a single cord. Roman blinds are economical with fabric. They can be painted or stencilled, and any fabric design is shown to best effect. Pull-up blinds can be excellent vehicles for trimmings, cording, rosettes, or bows, for example.
Bow Window Curtain Ideas
A continuous curve requires a curtain track to be bent and a pelmet board cut to fit the shape. Often an inexpensive plastic DIY track is bent to the curve and fixed to the architrave, remaining visible. This will save money but does little to enhance a pair of curtains.
A better solution is to use either professional fitters or the furnishings department of a large department store to measure, bend, and fit a tailored track and pelmet board. Like the bay window, the board can carry a pelmet, valance, or a band of covered buckram. The scale of a bow window suggests the use of floor-length curtains. Blinds are usually inadvisable, as the curve of the window is not well adapted to the flat fixing needed.
Skylight and Velux Window Treatments
Set at an angle, curtains or blinds for skylights or Velux windows must be specially adapted to allow for the slope. Often the window tilts as it opens and should not be obstructed. A pole with rings can be fitted above the window using rod sockets. The base of short curtains can then be gathered onto another pole fitted below the window. Long curtains can be pinned back to the wall behind a similarly positioned pole or rod.
It is often sensible to order special blinds from the window manufacturers. These are efficient, if lacking decorative scope. For functional purposes, a roller blind is most appropriate. When pulled down, it can be held against the wall by cup hooks inserted below the window ledge.
Dormer Window Curtain Ideas
Dormer windows can present problems, having little surrounding space to accommodate curtains or blinds. Being small windows set into attic roofs, any loss of light is particularly serious. One solution is to gather curtains onto a hinged pole that swings back against the reveal. Alternatively, the outer edge of curtains hung outside the reveal can be cut at an angle and pinned back against the wall using battens screwed into the sloping ceiling. The edge of the curtain is attached to the side edge of the batten using touch-and-close fastening or tacks.
If there is no need to exclude light, a filmy valance of lace or cotton will decorate the window and soften the outline without interfering with the sunlight. A lambrequin provides decorative scope and makes a small window more important. It can either be used alone or with a roller blind. If there is any space above the window, a roller, or even Roman, blind can be fitted.
Small Window Treatments
Two approaches to small windows work well.
Small-Scale Window Ideas
For a solution that is in scale with the window, achieving a cottagey feel, try sill-length, gathered curtains or a simple lace valance. Use blinds inside the reveal if they can stack, or roll back above the window. Blinds hung outside the reveal are more flexible, but they can look strangely detached if the window is deeply recessed.
Large-Scale Window Ideas
Try to disguise the modest nature of the window by surrounding it with a pelmet and full-length curtains. In this way, the window can be made to appear higher and wider, deceiving the onlooker. Care should be taken, however, to avoid excessive contrast between window and curtain treatment. Wide or voluminous blinds may make the window appear large when lowered, but in their raised position the window is revealed as out of scale.
Arched Window Curtain Ideas
The usual approach is to use fixed-headed curtains, cut to follow the line of the arch, and either tied back or operated by Italian stringing. The curtains hang from screw eyes inserted around the curved architrave. A variation on this treatment is to use pull-up blinds cut to the shape of the window. They will mask light and will not pull up beyond the beginning of the arch’s curve.
For curtains which pull back clear of the window, use a pole, either above the window or cutting across below the semi-circular top. Blinds, too, can be hung from a straight fixing, but will also cause the arch to be lost or the window to be chopped into two.
Tall Window Curtain Ideas
A tall and narrow window will look gaunt without a little visual trickery. A pelmet or valance, combined with full-length curtains which pull well back to either side of the window, will make such a window appear wider. Similarly, a pair of curtains with a fixed heading will drape back and frame the glazed section while extending well to either side and lending apparent substance to the window. To avoid revealing bare wall, drape the leading edges over tieback arms to either side of the reveal.
French Door Curtain Ideas
Some French doors open inwards and need a treatment that will not cause an obstruction. This calls for one of three possible solutions.
Curtains can pull back to either side, probably hung from a pole. Curtains can also be slotted onto one or two rods that are fixed to the glazed part of the doors. Roller blinds can be fixed over the glazed section of the doors.
Roman or pull-up blinds, even if stacked above the door, will tend to get in the way, and are thus less efficient.
Curtains and Blinds for Doors
There are generally two reasons for wishing to cover a door.
For Draught Protection
These can be excluded by a single, heavy curtain, hung from a portière rod fixed to the door.
For Light and Privacy
A curtain, its top and base sewn to form slots, is gathered onto a rod fixed above and below the glazed section.
Sash Window Treatments
Sash windows are the best proportioned and most graceful of their kind and are correspondingly receptive to all forms of curtaining. The decorative moulding of the architrave sometimes makes them objects of beauty in themselves, often served more than adequately by a set of contemporary shutters. A sash window can use a pelmet, valance, or blind either inside or outside the reveal. Curtains should be floor-length whenever possible, with pelmets or valances in proportion.
Picture Window Curtain Ideas
Often picture windows are installed to open up a pleasant view that should not then be blocked with curtaining. By night, however, the view turns to one of oppressive darkness which calls for some form of covering. The third consideration is one of traffic, the window is actually a door, through which people must pass without obstruction and often there is no space to the side for a curtain to be drawn back.
The modern style of many picture windows, composed as they are of large sheets of glass with little surrounding decoration, sits unhappily with all but the sleekest curtains or blinds. A hard upholstered pelmet, with a shaped lower edge and accompanied by a curtain, is one option. However, pelmets seem to call for symmetry and may look unbalanced without a pair of curtains beneath.
Perhaps more successfully, a single curtain, hung from a pole or from a covered board and fascia, can stack back to one side of the window, away from the opening side, during the day and can be drawn across at night. Avoid pretty floral chintzes, ruffles, or gathers, as the contrast of styles may jar. Roman blinds are often ideal in this context when there is room above the window in which to stack them. Their clean lines marry well with those of the window.
Matching Different Window Sizes
Different sizes of curtain, side by side or in the same room, can look clumsy. Try to treat the windows similarly. Find a compromise solution that will work for both.
Curtains for Radiators and Window Seats
Floor-length curtains will block a radiator’s heat and cannot be closed over a window seat. Sill-length curtains overcome this problem but are often visually inadequate. Roman or pull-up blinds are sometimes better suited to sill length. To achieve the effect of curtains with the practical advantages of blinds, use full-length curtains, tied permanently back, with a set of roller or Roman blinds behind to pull down at night.
Shutters
Never obstruct or remove shutters that belong in a house.
Window Treatments for Shelves or Walls Beside a Window
Use either a single curtain hung from a pole and swept back to one side, or a blind, roller, Roman, or pull-up.
Inaccessible Window Treatments
A lambrequin or simple pelmet would be suitable as decoration. More practical is a blind operated by cords hanging well below the window.
Conclusion
The best treatment for different types of windows usually depends on the shape of the window, the amount of space around it, and whether the room needs more light, privacy, or decoration. In some cases, floor-length curtains give the best effect, while in others a blind or simple valance is the more practical choice. Shutters should be left in place, and awkward windows are often best handled with a compromise solution. When the treatment matches the window well, the room feels balanced and the result remains useful for years to come.
