A house becomes a home when the décor and ambience extend the inhabitants’ personality, amalgamated with the imagery and comfort the owners want the interiors to reflect.
Decorating the home can be an exciting, though a tad confusing, activity. The process needs to be as systematic as possible, as a haphazard process can sometimes lead to chaos and mismatched interiors. The initial steps before decorating or redecorating your home are paramount to the choosing and procuring stage.
- First and foremost, decide and allocate the finances and a convenient time for the decoration.
- Begin by ascertaining the look and effect you want in your home or room.
- Once you have decided on the look, decide on the colour combination.
- Next come the accessories: upholstery and draperies or window coverings. At this point, choose the material you want for interior decoration items and window dressings.
- Scout for the right brands and outlets for selecting and ordering the items. Make sure the brands and materials do not exceed your budget.
Now you are ready for the selection process. Ideally, the windows and door openings you would like to dress should complement the general colour scheme and look of the existing décor or the redecoration plans.
The choice of window coverings largely depends on the direction of the sunlight and breeze that graces your home. For most of the day, a home or room that gets direct sunlight would need layering to provide shade and protection from the heat. The same goes for the direction and power of the winds, especially during the cold winter.
Here are some pointers to help you choose the proper window accessory for your home.
- Layering curtains and Venetian blindscan lead to disastrous results if not done with care. The right balance of contrast will ensure a harmonious look without the colours or designs clashing. Windows blinds or shutters are generally in neutral colours or wood stains so that the curtain layering choice can be either a solid complementing colour or a pattern. Make sure your curtains are in tandem with the rest of the décor, like upholstery, carpets, etc.
- Soft window dressings like roller shades, cellular shades, or roman shades must be layered as a print and a coordinating solid. If the shade is solid, pick a complementing print for the curtains.
- The more adventurous and experimenting can try choosing the shades and curtains in solid colours or both in prints. The trick is making sure the colours or the prints do not clash, creating a disjointed and disastrous effect. While picking prints, choose one to be a delicate print, and the other can be larger and bolder. Be careful that you do not pick clashing colours and conflicting prints. For example, a floral print would look lovely with a thin striped print on the vertical blinds.
- When contrasted harmoniously, a combination of roman shades and curtains adds a cosy, intimate and romantic atmosphere to the room. This combination also has the versatility to create differing effects at different times of the day. During the day, you can pull back the curtains with the shades down for a filtered illuminated effect, and at night, the thicker curtains drawn over the shades will block out the street lights, creating a very intimate and serene space.
- A layer of sheer curtains will beautifully complement a printed vertical or horizontal blind layer. The sheer fabric will not cover or camouflage the print while creating a soothing yet dramatic effect.
While taking measurements, ensure the curtain rods extend beyond the window edges for the gaps left by the blinds to be adequately covered by the curtain layer.
