When you put a room together, things like the furniture, paint colors, and decorative accents are likely top of mind, but don’t forget about the window treatments. They provide privacy as well as help to control the natural light in the room. Plus, they add the perfect finishing touch to your space.
Window treatments can have a kind of stuffy and dated feel to them. Suddenly, you have visions of Grandma’s house with those dusty, heavy floral curtains. Or maybe you don’t know what to use and resort to blinds because that’s what people have done for decades.
Luckily, there are now more options than ever, and window treatments are making a comeback. These days, they prove that they’re an asset to nearly any room.
“Beyond aesthetics, they do so much for a space,” says interior designer Pamela Lastiri. “They can visually add height to a room, soften acoustics and echo, control glare, and protect furniture and finishes from the sun—and most importantly, privacy,” says Lastiri. “But more than anything, they dress a room.”
With these benefits in mind, here are the window treatments designers say feel fresh instead of boring and dated.
1. Drapery That Matches the Walls
“For a more immersive approach, consider matching your drapery closely to the wall color,” suggests interior designer Marie Flanigan. “Rather than creating contrast, the fabric blends into the architecture, creating a fully drenched, enveloping space. The effect is sophisticated and layered without feeling busy.”
The good news is the fabric doesn’t need to match the wall perfectly, she says. “In fact, I often prefer a subtle variation in tone or texture,” says Flanigan. “Hanging the drapery from ceiling to floor, and extending it beyond the window, creates an especially elegant, enveloping effect.”
2. Ripple Fold Drapery
“Ripple fold drapery” is characterized by continuous S-shaped waves that produce a more modern look. It’s trending, and Carrie Moore of Carrie Moore Interior Design, is loving it.
“Ripple fold drapery has perfect, uniform waves in the fabric and glides effortlessly along tracks,” says Moore. “It’s very clean and contemporary. We often use minimal tracks, which blend in with ceilings and walls, focusing your attention on the drapery and fabric rather than the hardware.”
3. Pinch-Pleat Curtains
Tailored, “pinch-pleat” curtains, which are gathered and pinched at the top, have been arround since the 19th century, says Diane Luna, founder of Diane Luna Interior Design. They’ve never gone truly out of style, but homeowners seem to have more of an affinity for them these days.
“Today’s version of this pleat is cleaner and sassier, and is typically styled in beautifully updated fabrics,” she says. “Gorgeous as operable panels, the exact spacing between pinched pleats ensures that your curtains remain beautifully tailored when closed and perfectly stacked when open—no awkward bunching of fabric.”
Since pleating gathers the fabric, it can make a finished panel super skinny if you aren’t careful, according to Luna. “Many people don’t realize this and order pleated panels in just a single width of fabric. What a surprise when they receive skimpy curtain panels. Order panels in double widths to account for the shrinkage and get that fullness.”
4. Café Curtains
“Café curtains are having a wonderful resurgence,” says Flanigan. “Traditionally associated with kitchens and European interiors, they’re an easy way to introduce softness and privacy without covering an entire window. They feel especially fresh when made from beautiful linen, a subtle stripe, or a small-scale pattern.”
Hang café curtains at or slightly below the midpoint of the window, depending on the desired level of privacy, recommends Flanigan. “I love using a simple brass rod for added patina and warmth,” she says.
5. Short Drapes
“Once a huge no-no, we now embrace a short drape when there is built-in furniture below that makes taking the drapes to the floor impossible,” explains Moore. “For instance, we recently had a built-in window seat in a little girl's room, and dressing the window in a short drape worked out beautifully. It allowed us to match the rest of the drapery in the room, they are easy to open and close, and aesthetically, they are charming.”
6. Valances
Stationary valances—a fixed, decorative treatment that just covers the top portion of a window—are “totally trending,” some with a tailored look, others with a “quite ruffled” look, says Luna.
“I personally like a tailored valance with contrast banding,” she says. “The design is incredibly clean-lined and the softness of fabric adds beautiful texture to a room. A valance draws your eye upward, making the room seem larger and fuller, and provides visual interest up top.”
The key is to install valances taller than you’d think, she says. “I want them to be nice and full-scaled, not too squatty,” says Luna. “This typically requires ordering a custom treatment, as most retail stores sell valances that are too short. A good rule of thumb is to not go any shorter than 18 inches when buying a valance. Some I have done recently have been as tall as 24 inches.”
Shelby Deering is a freelance lifestyle writer who frequently covers home design and decor for national publications. She has worked as a full-time freelance writer for over a decade, and has worked in the industry for nearly 20 years, writing home tours, interviewing top designers, and beautifying her own home. She holds a master's degree in Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and when she's not writing, you can find her at thrift stores and flea markets, running, or exploring local trails in Madison, Wisconsin, with her husband and corgi, Dolly.
