Window Blinds and Shades:
Fresh Ideas For Your Living Room
Window blinds and shades aren’t always at the forefront of one’s mind when seeking ideas for your living room or lounge. We tend to focus on replacing the carpet, redecorating the walls, and upgrading the tired old sofa.
But including your window treatments in a re-design should always be a key consideration. The revered US designer, Rose Tarlow adapted a famous quote which perfectly encapsulates the importance of window treatments:
“If eyes are the windows to our souls,
then windows are the eyes into the soul of a house.”
Budget Friendly Living Room Ideas
Keep It Simple With Roller Blinds
The living room is where you spend most of your waking hours at home. As a room where you unwind and relax as well as entertain guests, its important to get your window treatments right. A stylish, well dressed window solution doesn’t have to cost the earth. Roller blinds are simple to operate, easy to maintain and come in a wide range of plain and patterned finishes. They are also one of the most affordable styles of blind you can choose. Forget old fashioned vertical blinds and go for a patterned roller blind, like the one shown in this living room.
Roman Blinds With Curtains Add Style and Class
Roman blinds are a stylish, elegant window treatment. They are perfect for living rooms in Victorian or Edwardian properties with tall ceilings, large bay windows and sash windows. One of the advantages of Roman blinds is the fact they can be made from any fabric of your choice. So if you want to have cushions that match up to your blinds, they can be hand-made together for perfect synchronicity.
Pairing Roman blinds with curtains may increase your budget, but there are a number of benefits. From a practicality perspective, lining the curtains will block out sunlight and with the Roman blinds, will provide more privacy.
Combining the two creates a bold, luxurious look. As you can see from this image, the look is reminiscent of a lounge area in a country hotel. One golden rule is never to pair two sets of patterns. If you go for a neat pattern for your Roman blind, stick with a solid colour for the curtains, to let the pattern breathe.
Luxury Window Treatments For Your Living Room
Lounge Shutters
If you’re looking for a high quality, luxury window treatment for your living room, there are some stunning options available. We’ve seen a massive rise in the popularity of window shutters.
One misconception of shutters is that you’d only really use them in older, traditional properties. The reality is, they look good in any home, adding kerb appeal from the exterior and elegance on the inside. Full height, hardwood shutters, finished in white, will brighten up your living room. Sunlight bounces off the white louvers adding natural light to the room.
Cafe shutters, leaving the apex of the window exposed to allow more natural light to flood in, look great in a living room. Decora’s Santa Fe hardwood shutters look stunning here, with the brilliant white finish contrasting against the dark blue walls.
Perfect Pirouettes To Grace Your Lounge
If you prefer the look of blinds and want something completely different, look no further than Pirouette® Shades, by Luxaflex.
Designed for lovers of light and fabric, Pirouette® Shades combines a sheer, translucent fabric, with soft silks, satins and linen finishes to bring a touch of class to your lounge. Check out the video to see them in action.
If you’ve embraced smart technology in other parts of your home, you can even operate your shutters and blinds from a tablet or smartphone. You can even use your voice to open and close them, with a compatible device like Alexa or Google Home.
It’s Great When You Automate
As we embrace smart technology in all aspects of our home life, you may not know that it’s also possible to motorise your blinds, shutters and curtains. The cost has come down significantly in recent years, meaning that even on a modest budget, you might find that an automated solution is within reach.
Roller, Roman and Venetian blinds can all be motorised and operated by a simple remote control device. Luxaflex has pioneered its own system, called PowerView®, with an ergonomic, tactile remote, called Pebble®. Most other leading manufacturers have similar remotes which work just as well.
If your budget can go further, you may want to consider the latest smarthub technology. With a wifi connection and compatible hardware from home hub experts such as Somfy, you can control all of your window treatments. There’s even voice activated solutions, with Alexa and Google Home being popular choices.
All of these products work brilliantly in a living room. As its a room that’s likely to catch the sun at some point during the day, setting up automations while you’re out will keep your living room cool, whilst protecting your sofas and other furniture pieces from sun fade.
Final Word
With the living room containing so many big ticket items such as sofas, armchairs, televisions and wooden furniture, window treatments do get overlooked. Always remember that your blinds, shutters and curtains not only make a stunning, aesthetic feature of the room, they also serve several important functions. They give you privacy, and with it, security. They protect your furniture from the sun’s damaging rays. They also have thermal properties – keeping your room cool in the summer and warm during the winter.
Don’t let a 65 inch black mirrored Tv screen be the focal point of your living room. Invest in stunning window treatments that will bring this special room to life.
You may also like…
