Blinds and Drapery Combination – Best of Both Worlds

With blinds alone, the window treatment often times look incomplete. Adding drapery and valances can enhance the look of the windows, achieve golden ratio proportions, make ceiling appear taller, etc.

Blinds, especially the soft fabric shades, are cost effective solutions to covering many windows in the house or condo.  With the wide range of types, light control capabilities and colour and finishes, one can find a blind solution for virtually all the windows in the home.

However, with blinds alone, the window treatment often times look incomplete, especially for the important windows in the home, like the Living Room, Dining Room, Family Room, Master Bedroom and even Study Room.

Adding drapery and valances can enhance the look of the windows, make the window proportions appear closer to the golden ratio, make ceilings appear taller, give a feeling of warmth, and tie in with the rest of the home decor and furnishings.

Let’s take a quick look at a living room application of drapery and valance:

Scenario 1: Nice high quality window shades in a popular grey tone.  It provides functional benefits of Top-Down Bottom-Up operation and is aesthetically pleasing.  However, there appears to be a lot of blank wall space, especially above the windows.

Scenario 2: We now add side panel drapes.  The windows appear a bit taller and wider and more of the bare walls are covered.  Most homeowners typically go with side panel drapes for important windows to complete the look.

Scenario 3: We add a valance to cover up the drapery hardware and the window shade headrails.  Now the windows appear fully framed and the 3 window section appears as a integrated whole.

MODERN LOOK

Some homeowners prefer a more modern look and are worried that adding drapery and/or valance will make the room look too traditional.  The good news is that at Trendy Blinds, we offer modern approaches to drapery and valance making and application that gives a modern yet dressy look to any window.

MODERN WAVE DRAPERY

In this example of a modern home office, the homeowner uses a modern desk and chair. However, the room windows are too small in proportion to the size of the wall and room and the ceiling appears low due to the low position of the top of the windows.  We used end-to-end Modern Wave drapery with ceiling mounting decorative track hardware to fully emphasize the height and width.  Modern Wave does not use any visible top treatment like pleats or grommets thus giving a cleaner look.  Unlike ripplefold drapery, Modern Wave drapery stacks tight when drawn opening, maximizing outside views.