Dressing a pretty window
Sometimes--make that often--plans in design evolve.
The longer you live in a house, the more you spot problems that can be solved by design.
Take my client in NJ with the gorgeous traditional house and fabulous taste. (Yes, she's reading, but this is also true!)
One of the first things we worked on together were window treatments for her kitchen. We chose ivory raw silk for roman shades to give texture without competing too much with all the gorgeous elements in the room. And we trimmed them out in blue velvet ribbon to tie in the color of the range and to take it up a notch in formailty. You can see progress shots here.
But we left this window bare.
So lovely on its own, yes?
Turns out, for functional reasons, a shade is required. (Light control and privacy: the big two!) But what to do? There's always more than one way to go.
1. Perhaps the most obvious choice: a roman shade made to match the others. Nice. But also, perhaps, a missed opportunity. It would be nice to coordinate with the original treatments but also play up the difference of this one--the arched shape and those amazing leaded diamond panes!
2. Cafe curtains. Pretty, breezy, and leaving the window top free to strut its stuff. Though not sure this is really solving the problem of light control.
3. A matching roman shade set off by a shaped cornice in a print. The cornice following the line of the arched window just emphasizes its pretty shape. I'm thinking of bringing back the print from the barstools. Fab, yes?
Or going solid and trimmed, with a natural/ grass shade underneath.
I know what has my vote, but I have to say, ANY of these strategies really dresses up the window, plays up its shape, and balances the architecture of the flanking cabinets. We can't go wrong!
What would you choose?