Buffalo Check Curtains: Fine-Finish the Country Vibe

Image by Kipling House Interiors

It’s easier to get you out of the country than to get the country out of you! Tucked within the contemporary elements of an urban home, it’s not uncommon to find nostalgic love passed on in frilly linens, plaid quilts and of course – our favorite piece of the country –  a charming set of buffalo check curtains. After all, your home can’t get any luckier than with windows that let in a homesick waft of memories bejeweled with the old country vibe.

If your desire to dress your windows in this warm, iconic pattern has brought you to Spiffy Spools today, do take advantage of the styling tips in this blog that strives to help you with ideas to make your buffalo check curtains go cohesively with your design. And of course, count on our latest collection to satisfy your quest for variety and on our expert drapers for the fantastic final outcome. 

Whether you’re looking for rustic farmhouse curtains, country curtains, or cabin curtains, buffalo check curtains are sure to fit your vision. Explore our collection of checks, ginghams, and plaid curtains in various scales and colors to find the perfect match for your home.

Our Favorite Places to Hang Buffalo Check Curtains

Image by Peter & Paul

Call them MacGregors or Rob Roys or Buffalo Checks –  a rose by any other name would still be a rose! These multiple names however do point to the checkered history of these checks – so Canadians associate them with the red and black lumberjacks, Americans with the classic Woolrich quilts and Scotts with the ancient, immortal clan-symbolic tartans. 

The warmth and character that have made buffalo checks persevere across ages and geographies – are also the reason this pattern continues to drape windows of so many of our clients’ homes. Though buffalo check curtains are befitting for any room in a modern country home, we do harbor a not-so-secret obsession for them in three locales in particular: cozy kitchens, adorable nurseries, and festive holiday homes. Let’s see how they work the magic there.

Image by Patricia Fisher Design

• Rustic Kitchens: One place where you cannot ever complete your decor without buffalo checks is the typical hyggelig farmhouse kitchen. Every element of this nostalgic design speaks volumes about an era in which love was passed on by old wrinkled hands through woven cane baskets, carved wood, and plaid quilts. And nothing says country as a set of short red kitchen curtains proudly featuring the classic buffalo check. That coziness exemplar of the French cottage, the English farmhouse, and the coastal decor is wrapped up beautifully within a set of carefully crafted buffalo check curtains, unassumingly softening the hard woody elements of these spaces instantly. 

Image by Lisa Gabrielson Design

• Nurseries: The buffalo checks, being made of perfect squares all through, have a gender-neutral appeal and implicit visual language that make them strong propositions for nurseries and kids’ rooms. The perfectly symmetrical squares belong to the family of sharp-edged geometric shapes which subliminally inspire trust and security – the sense of groundedness required in a space primarily meant to foster the first and lasting impressions of safety and assurance in a young mind. They might also provide a fun way to teach some basic geometry to your tiny tot. What a cute little den it will make for your child when soft pink-white or blue-white buffalo checked tie top drapes will billow over their breezy window!

Image by The Endearing Home

• Holiday homes: There’s an unbeatable aura about the ancient uncomplicated buffalo check that makes it effortlessly warm and cozy. Over the years, buffalo checks, especially the red-black combo have gotten deeply associated with the Christmas holiday season. Red-black buffalo check curtains are one of the hallmark Christmas decor items that you bring out for the Christmas cheer season and then store away as you count the days to the next Christmas. Beyond the red-black checks, the other color combos in varied magnified scales have found a round-the-year place in rugs, upholstery, walls, and furniture in contemporary interiors. The deeply entrenched holiday vibe of this adorable pattern is perfect for casual spaces and ideal for holiday homes.  The relaxed idyllic vibe of your buffalo-checked drapes can make your retreat house the perfect escape from the harshness of a busy corporate life. 

READ MORE: HOW TO STORE DRAPES & CURTAINS

Top Tips to Style Your Home with Buffalo Check Curtains

Like walls, window treatments subconsciously occupy your visual attention even when you’re not looking at them directly. Whether you want to neutralize the theme or make it bold, buffalo check drapes can do the job for you. They can efficiently express the color scheme of the house, especially in monochromatically envisioned spaces. They can visually elongate a low ceiling. They can optically widen a narrow room. The possibilities are virtually endless, and listed below are a few techniques from our stylists tap into this delightful style for your own home.

Image by Ballard Designs

• Layer with Sheers: Since buffalo checks are typically based in white, they allow more light to trickle into your rooms. If you wish to tone them down without losing the brightness, layer them with white sheers. When the white portions of the buffalo checks interject with the serene white of the sheers, it’s an indescribable delight to the eye, besides being an energy-efficient way to keep your room airy and light. Or if you’d rather play up the color, choose the sheers in color and let the white of your check stand tall in contrast. 
• Pair Shades and Drapes: If you want to make the best of both – the softness of drapes and the crispness of shades – pair your buffalo check curtains with white roman shades where the drapes will be stationary ornamental features to soften the sharp lines of the walls. Conversely, use the shades to provide a distortion-free vision of the emblematic pattern and pair them with solid curtains. Complete with complementing ribbon tie-backs this pair of curtains will certainly leave you gazing at your window’s charm for a while.

Image by Ballard Designs

• Pattern Trinity: Our stylists – like many designers – are fans of mixing patterns and believe three is truly a magic number. We recommend pairing your buffalo check curtains with stripes and florals in other elements to mix the hard and soft. Play with scale while keeping continuity through palette. For example, place floral and striped cushions on an off-white couch with your buffalo-checked drapes happily backdropping and effortlessly syncing with them in the cozy living room. Or use gingham table runners and floral upholstered chairs in the dining room with your buffalo checks fanning in the evening breeze at your windows.
• Consider Valances and Cafe Curtains: For windows that need to let in air and provide glimpses of the landscape’s scenic beauty more than guarding the privacy – a cozy kitchen overlooking your garden, or laundry rooms that can do without privacy but need to soak in sunlight for example – consider using buffalo-checked cafe curtains. The soft overlaps formed in those header-frilled rod-pockets inspire a dreamy homeliness. Buffalo checked valances add to the warmth and work wonderfully with buffalo-checked curtains as well as plain whites. Scalloped or Sheffield valances can cherry-top the sweet casual appeal of your holiday home. 

Image by Katie Davis Design

• Choose Complementing Hardware: The rustic appeal of the curtain can be complemented and further accentuated by suitable hardware such as white-painted distressed wood poles, wrought iron poles or warm wood textured poles, and carved wood round finials rather than the plain metallic hardware of modern times. The relaxing vibe of the buffalo checks is truly complete when paired with soft textured hardware exposed by the tab tops or tie tops unless they are hidden away by valances.

READ MORE: HOW TO CAPTURE THE COZY COTTAGECORE AESTHETIC IN YOUR HOME

Conclusion

Buffalo checks found their way to old farmhouses because they were the easiest to hand-weave but they have equally impressed the less ornate, functionality-oriented modern minimalists, by their simplicity – perhaps the reason why they never exit the main stage. These checks have outlived the fashion trends of centuries before they landed in our twenty-first-century homes and are never ever going to be out of style. They are a graceful blend of the softness of whites, classic appeal of the symmetries, and the homeliness of the country home. If you got out of the country but can’t get the country out of you, what better way to gratify your inner leaning than shopping for your buffalo-checked drapes with us today?

READ MORE: COUNTRY KITCHEN CURTAINS: IDEAS & TIPS