Choosing soft window furnishings to transform your home
Window dressings can help make or break a room, giving a tired room a new breath of life and transforming it from drab to fab. Mixing and matching window treatment colours, textures and styles can add interest to a room as well as provide a functional role in terms of controlling light and temperature, influencing how a room feels and how we live in the space.
Each room of a home will have its own unique needs when it comes to window treatments. Bedrooms may require blockout shades for complete darkness at night, and sheers for during the day, while a living room may need to control the heat and sunlight. The versatility and light control options of a room increase greatly when using a combination of window treatments with varying opacity levels.
Sheer window treatments provide an ethereal quality to a room combining elegance with functional design, diffusing natural light to your exact preference. Luxaflex® Silhouette® Shadings with signature S-Vanes is a clever blend of on-trend design aesthetics and practicality. The innovative material allows you to see outside while restricting the view from the street for privacy.
Warm tones and soft shades help create a cosy retreat. A popular soft window furnishing design trend is choosing the monochromatic route, with the wall paint, and window shades, all sharing the same colour family. Lighter walls can be nicely accented with a darker shade covering or vice versa - combining soft shades such as caramel, tan, chocolate and latte work well to create a relaxed atmosphere and an oasis away from the outside world.
Using smooth curves and organic shapes within soft furnishings adds interest, flow and movement to a space, helping the eye meander around the room. Organic shapes in minimalistic interiors can soften the aesthetic and keep it from appearing too harsh or lifeless. You can easily incorporate curves into various elements such as couches, tables, lighting fixtures, and soft window furnishings.
Layering more than one window treatment can add both beauty and function to any room. Finding the right balance between two or three types of window treatments that will complement each other without looking overly decorated or cluttered is key when choosing soft furnishings.
Neale Whitaker, Luxaflex Brand Partner, suggests mixing and matching different types of materials and fabrics. “Pirouette® Shadings, used in conjunction with sheers, offer the perfect solution for a living room or bedroom, allowing privacy without compromising any views. They combine poised precision and elegant light control with softly contoured, front-facing fabric vanes attached to a single sheer backing.” During opening and closing, the vanes move in tandem for a fluid, graceful effect. Three-dimensional fabric vanes provide a striking and uniform interior look whilst softly filtering sunlight.
Insulation is a key factor when choosing your window dressings, and you should consider which direction your windows are facing - south-facing facades will need something very different to those facing west. The versatility of soft furnishing products means you can mix and match the most suitable products for each room, without compromising on the overall finished look.
The Luxaflex® Duette® Shades series is unrivaled when it comes to elegant window coverings that keep your home warm in winter and cool in summer. The unique honeycomb structure of Luxaflex® Duette® Shades provides a contemporary striking look whilst providing efficient insulation by trapping air within the honeycomb cell. The versatile design caters for arches, angles, and skylights, and with fabrics available in classic and contemporary tones and textures, they can create the perfect focal point in a room or seamlessly blend with any décor style.
Lastly, consider how you place your soft furnishings in relation to the size of the room. Floor-to-ceiling curtains that extend past the window opening and are layered over soft shades placed within the window frame, are a great way to add height to your room or accent a room with tall ceilings. Selecting curtain rods that make a statement is another way to add a unique look to your living room or bedroom drapery.
Soft furnishings shouldn't be an afterthought at the end of a project. They are a major part of a room visually, and something that you will interact with every day, so ensuring you achieve an end result which is both beautiful and practical is vital. If unsure, get expert advice. Specialists will consider a variety of factors such as window positioning, function of the room, light and shade control options. Remember that the perfect pairing of soft furnishings for your windows is to consider balancing functionality, performance and style to meet your exact needs for every window, in every space.
For further information, visit www.luxaflex.com.au
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