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Living Room Roman Shades: Top Tips & Tricks

Image by Pure Salt Interiors / Vanessa Lentine

One of the most intimidating parts of the home decor project is the living room since it’s a place meant to entertain as much as to relax with family and friends. After all the splurging on a comfortable couch, statement art and curated decor accessories, something that needs as much consideration is the dispersion of natural light. Window treatments for living rooms must be both classy and cozy, but above all, embrace the light. If you’re looking for some design inspiration and genius ideas to get the right living room roman shades for your home, this blog can be of great help.

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Top Tips & Tricks for Living Room Roman Shades

Window treatments in the living room often are more aesthetic oriented than functional. Total privacy is not as much of a concern here as it is in a bedroom or bathroom, while maximizing light inflow often holds sway. How do we ensure meeting these specific requirements while selecting living room roman shades? Our stylists will answer this question ahead.

Consider Light

Image by Pure Salt Interiors

Lightweight fabric window treatments that are not meant to obstruct light but to filter them softly into the space are the assets of a well-considered living room. North and east facing windows get the soft sunrays of the mornings and evenings while south and west facing windows get the hotter noontime sun. Keeping this in mind, choose the materials wisely. Sheer, semi-sheer or lightweight fabric shades are highly recommended so that you can maximize natural light here. They help soften the light, cancel the glare and the heat stings, and provide privacy during the day. But if you want a more efficient light control while watching the telly, you may also find non-sheers apt.

Layering for Depth

Layering curtains roman shades for living room

Image by Jim Thompson

Layering roman shades with floor-length drapes can be a stunning arrangement for a living room. Layering helps to improve the insulative efficiency and to add a decorative element. If your window frame is sufficiently deep, you can mount the roman shade within the recess and frame it with narrow drapes that accent the shade. The drapes for your living room can be stationary on narrow side poles, so they never cover the shade and act purely as a decorative element framing the shades.

If you want fully functional living room drapes that span the entire window, extend the pole beyond the window trim to accommodate the stacking room on the side walls. This sort of layering enables you to have a versatile window treatment that can shift between sheers and opaque layers as per convenience and need of the hour.

To go a step further, you can also consider creating a complete look for your living room window treatments with valances. These are the cherry-on-top that not only add aesthetic value to your windows but also make your windows look larger and better framed.

Color & Pattern

Image by Christina Haire Interior Design

The color palette and the use or abstention from patterns is probably the most important decision-making point where you might linger a bit longer. Window treatments are an easy and efficient way to relay the color palette and the overall decor style very evidently.

If you’re considering solid-colored shades, you can borrow the color of the walls to make the room seem bigger by building the continuity and sense of a larger space. If you want to tone down the overbearing feel of an oversized living room, employ contrast. Similarly, patterns can either make the room feel smaller or bigger, depending upon the color contrast and scaling employed. While motifs like stripes can help to elongate the space, intricate patterns take away something of it.

Be assured that thoughtful use of patterns helps to liven up the space and makes it look more friendly and welcoming, and when overdone, it does just the opposite. So, let the pattern take cognizance of the size of the room; if it’s easy on the eye, the job is done.

Also, consider the size of the window – if your patterns are too large for the size of the shade, they will be cut off abruptly, if too small, they will be lost in the vastness.

Unlike drapes that are always visible and take up a high optical space, roman shades that have a minimal construct and fold upwards are not before your eyes all the time. So, you can introduce a very bold color or motif if that is what you like without fearing that it will overthrow the entire design. In fact, if your living room lacks a focal point such as a fireplace or a media unit, your quirky window shade might fulfill that role perfectly.

SHOP NOW: CUSTOM PATTERNED / PRINTED ROMAN SHADES FROM SPIFFY SPOOLS

Window Size Decisions

Image by Pure Salt Interiors

It is important to choose the right fabric, but all the more important that they fit right for your living room window choices. The bigger you make the window look, the more beneficial it is to fake spaciousness in the living room.

Small windows can be made to seem bigger by outside mounting the shade. The trick is to position it high enough to contain the stacks above the window so that the entire opening is cleared when the shade is raised.

Conversely, for tall windows, opt for inside mounting because the stacked shade will take away a part of it and reduce its overbearing, elongated tone.

Extra-wide windows should ideally be covered by multiple shades to ensure greater longevity of the hardware, easy operability, and more options for light control.

Fold Style

Image by Stagg Design

Roman shades come in various styles and we provide three popular ones that cater to varied needs and interests.

Flat fold shades are easy to operate as they have slats to support the fabric panel that help to form the folds neatly. They come in two sub-styles: the front-slatted shades and the back-slatted shades.

The front-slatted shades have the hemlines of the slats visibly present on the frontage. These horizontal lines function like a pattern on solid shades. The back-slatted shades have their slats affixed to the lining, so that the frontage is free of any visual breaks. This style is recommended for patterned shades so that the vivid shapes and colors are presented in their essential beauty.

The third style on offer is the relaxed shades which have scalloped bottoms and are constructed without slats. The gently curving folds exude a very plush vibe and a relaxed feel, however, they need assistance to dress up each time they are operated.

Assuming that living room windows are going to be left entirely or partially open most of the time, relaxed shades are ideal if you love the way this style looks. For a more crisp and tailored finish, go for the flat fold shades, especially if you’re going to operate the windows often.

If you’d rather leave your windows untreated except for the decor element, consider faux shades which are stationary valances with folds that mimic partially opened roman shades. More economical but offering all the designing possibilities that a fully functional shade does, faux shades are a smart way to dress up the window and yet not overdo it.

Element of Oomph

Image by Laura Kirar

If you want to relay a high-end and custom look for your roman shade, you mustn’t skip this step – trim your roman shades. You are sure to find a trim that satisfies your taste from among our vast variety of delicate details like ribbons, pompoms, fringes, gimps, tassels, and braids. From shiny gilded ones to textured and matte finished ones, you have a choice galore to air a casual or formal look, as you like it and need it to be.

Trims are not just a good way to tell the bespoke character of your roman shade but also help immensely to mix colors, mix solids and patterns, and add textural variety to an otherwise simple window treatment.

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Summing Up

Image by Anna Spiro Design

Living rooms should be truly ‘living’ spaces – filled with fresh air, natural light, comfort, and good times with loved ones. We, at Spiffy Spools, hope to help you execute a part of that project. With the right kind of roman shade at your window, when your living room booms with energy, light, and style, we’ll be truly proud of having walked this journey with you.

Order Custom Roman Shades from Spiffy Spools

Now that you have all the info you need to understand the best roman shade fit for your living room, let’s sit back and get into the fun bit of browsing through our collection of 3000+ fabrics for roman shades and get the one that has ‘my home’ written all over it. Happy shopping!