Form and Function | Five great window treatments combos

Form and Function
Five Great Window Treatment Combos

By Susan Kostelecky

Do you recommend a combination of both hard and soft window treatments to your clients? If not, you should consider it. Combining these two design elements on a window is a great way to achieve both form and function in a room.

Let’s take a look at what these treatments offer:

Benefits of hard treatments:
• Privacy
• Light control
• May provide continuity throughout the front of the home
• Can be neutral to meet deed restrictions/neighborhood ordinances
• Wide variety of colors, styles, textures available

Soft treatments can add:
• Interest
• Height
• Width
• Shape
• Balance
• Color and texture with fabrics, pattern and trim

Promoting the benefits of layering hard and soft treatments allows window treatment designers the opportunity to stagger sales to a customer if budget or timing is a concern.

By providing a design plan that can be accomplished in stages, a customer can purchase blinds, shutters or shades to provide privacy and light control immediately. When budget permits, the soft treatments can be added, softening the room and adding details and warmth. A bonus benefit of staggering the sales and installation of soft treatments is that your client will see the tremendous change and improvement that soft window treatments can make to a room’s personality and comfort.

Here are five great window treatment combinations:

Blinds + Layered Soft Treatments (Drapery Panels, Cornices and Swags)
When viewing this beautiful master bedroom scene, you can hardly visualize what the room may have looked like prior to the installation of these window treatments by Gillian Wendel of Wendelworks in Pinehurst, Texas.

This photo showcases how this bay window combination was transformed with fabric and trim.
• Width: The drapery panels add width to the windows and provide a frame for the sitting area and chaise lounge.
• Height: The cornices make maximum use of the significant space above the windows and raise the eye up.
• Shape: The beautiful draping of the swags and added interest of the trim adds shape to the trio of windows and adds visual weight and interest.

Blinds + Valances
Here is a wonderful example of how to add shape to windows by combining a shaped cornice with swagged overlays and jabots.

The white wood blinds provide privacy and light control, coordinating with the moldings in the room. Gillian Wendel’s design, fabric, trim selection and fabrication add rich dimension, interest and contrast to the paint and other finishes in this dining room.

Woven Wood Shades + Valances
The warm tones and textures of the woven woods in this design (by Gillian Wendel) are accented by the bamboo drapery rod, richly patterned fabric, gold silk and trim in this family room. The pattern motif has been carefully selected and centered in each valance segment, providing continuity and flow.

Again, height, width, softness and shape have been added to the room with the addition of the decorative valances.

Blinds, Decorative Hardware + Soft Treatments
The Minutes Matter Studio rendering for this master bedroom showcases how decorative hardware and fabrics accent existing blinds.

With more than two feet of open space between the transom windows and the ceiling, the staggered height of the hardware, panels and small cornices help draw the eye higher in the room and add color, shape, softness, interest and drama, balancing out the large master bed and armoire in the room.

Shutters + Valances
Just a few years ago, it seemed many of my clients felt that shutters completed the treatment of their windows. Now, many of those clients have added soft treatments to those previously installed shutters.

This young boy’s room achieves new height by taking advantage of the available room above the windows, balancing out the decorative basketball-related art and memorabilia that is placed high on the wall.

This young Houston Rockets fan was thrilled to have his own custom-embroidered pennant included in this window treatment. By adding height, color, pattern and whimsy, this treatment by SK Designs was a solid hit with the client.

Susan Kostelecky, owner of SK Designs, began her award-winning custom window treatments and bedding business in 1995. Serving the Greater Houston area, including many homes featured on area home tours, Kostelecky provides window treatment and bedding design ideas, fabrication and installation.