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What Types Of Curtains & Blinds Are Best For Different Rooms?
When it comes to finding the right curtains and blinds for your home, you'll want to consider the different styles and functionality that each different room requires. Different rooms have different moods, aspects and purposes so it's not surprising your curtains and blinds will too. You'll need to consider things like: are you trying to keep a room cosy at night or shading a baby's nursery from direct morning sun? Is privacy a priority or do you want to welcome the outdoors into the home?
This through the floor plan of your home and see what you should be thinking about when it comes to your window treatments. In our informative buying guide, we explore the considerations and requirements for each room, as well as offer some great tips and tricks on installation and styling for our ready made curtains and blinds.
Quick Links
- Curtains Or Blinds: What's The Difference?
- Living Rooms: How To Choose Curtains & Blinds
- Bedroom Curtains & Blinds: How To Create A Cosy Sleeping Haven
- Kitchens & Bathrooms: Choose Hardwearing Window Coverings
- Styling Your Curtains & Blinds: How To Match To Your Decor
Curtains Or Blinds: What's The Difference?
Both blinds and curtains are a great way to add style, colour and texture to your home decor. At Spotlight, you can find blockout curtains, room darkening curtains and sheer curtains in a wide range of heading types. When it comes to blinds, you can choose from roller blinds, venetian blinds, vertical blinds and Roman blinds. Curtains and blinds have distinct benefits and features so it pays to be informed before making a decision for your home. Here are the advantages of both.
- Curtains: With their immense decorative potential, curtains give any home a more luxurious finish, while also protecting soft furnishings from harsh sunlight and helping keep the whole home temperature-controlled and energy-efficient all year-round. And you can always add trims, tassels and tiebacks to your curtains for a personal touch.
- Blinds: Highly practical and easy to fit and use, blinds can offer excellent value for money and take up less space than curtains, which makes them especially appealing for today's apartment living. Blinds such as aluminium venetians and faux wood venetians are also excellent in areas of high condensation like bathrooms because they're designed to withstand such conditions.
Living Rooms: How To Choose Curtains & Blinds
When it comes to dressing the windows in your living room, you can use a combination of different blinds and curtains to maximise the unique benefits of each window covering type. Choose window furnishings that offer a range of functionalities to your living space: think blockout curtains for insulation and light blocking properties, and sheer blinds or curtains that offer daytime privacy without compromising on filling your space with light.
Living spaces and lounge rooms are the focal point to any home, and one of the spaces that gets frequent traffic and usage throughout the day. The right curtains and blinds for your living room should be practical and functional while creating an inviting comfortable atmosphere for you and your family.
The Modern Living Room
If you're looking for modern curtains for your living room, opt for eyelet curtains for a contemporary look and easy functionality. Home theatre rooms are becoming increasingly common in modern houses, and blockout or room darkening curtains can also offer extra sound absorption.
Living room roller blinds are a popular choice too - you could layer a sheer roller blind with blockout eyelet curtains, or why not swap things around and match sheer curtains with a blockout roller blind for a light and breezy aesthetic? There are also dual or day/night roller blinds that combine a sheer and blockout blind on a combination bracket. Roller blinds are also a fantastic option if you have French, bifold or sliding doors, as they seamlessly move out of the way.
Styling Tips: Choose plain-coloured or lightly textured curtains that complement your furniture. Neutral tones are a great way to ensure your curtains remain stylish and modern across different seasonal trends. You can always add bright colours and prints with soft furnishings like cushions and blankets & throws for an immediate home decorating update.
Classic & Traditional Living Rooms
For a more traditional aesthetic, choose curtains with a pleated header style. You can choose from pinch pleat curtains or pencil pleat curtains, both of which will look elegant with a coordinating sheer curtain nested behind your blockout curtains.
Pencil pleat curtains come in a range of printed and plain designs, and you can also find pencil pleat sheer curtains for an elegant and breezy look. The gathered curtain header found in pencil pleat curtains creates a richly voluminous curtain, and it's easy to adjust the amount of gathering to perfectly fit your curtain rod or track.
Roman blinds are another way to add a classic look to your living room, providing a decorative quality that is similar to curtains without the bulk. They're designed to gather up in sections, so you can suspend them at your chosen height and control the amount of light you let into your living space.
Styling Tips: Add a sense of luxury to your traditionally styled living spaces with rich colours and textures. This can emphasise the detail of period features in your home or in your furniture. Think floral patterns for a classic touch, or woven jacquard fabrics for a traditional look and feel.
Bedroom Curtains & Blinds: How To Create The Perfect Sleeping Haven
The most important factors for any bedroom are comfort and privacy, and the window furnishings you choose are a sure-fire way to achieve both. Like living rooms, your bedroom window coverings should ideally include a combination of blinds or curtains that offer different benefits depending on need or time of day.
Rest Easy With Blockout Curtains & Blinds
If you've been looking forward to a much-needed sleep in at the weekend, there's nothing worse than being woken up earlier than anticipated with the sun rising or a neighbour doing noisy renovations! Blockout blinds are a great option for keeping out the light and are ideal for smaller bedrooms where curtains aren't the best fit.
When it comes to resting soundly, blockout curtains are the tried and true way for minimising light and sound in your bedroom. They're also a great way to add insulation to your home, helping keep your bedroom warm in winter and cool in summer. Blockout curtains come in a range of curtain header types including eyelet curtains and pencil pleat curtains, as well as a great selection of colours, textures and patterns to suit any decor theme.
Brighten Your Bedroom With Sheer & Light Filtering Window Coverings
During the day, letting in a bit of sunshine is a great way to brighten your bedroom. Layer sheer curtains or blinds with your blockout or room darkening curtains, so you can adjust the natural light in your bedroom as you need throughout the day. Not only do sheer curtains bring light into the room, but they also add much-needed daytime privacy because nobody can see in from the outside.
Kids' Bedrooms: Create Healthy Sleep Routines With The Right Curtains & Blinds
For a child's bedroom, sleep and safety are the two dominant factors. Sunout blinds and blockout curtains can aid in creating a sense of 'night' - ideal for getting your little ones to sleep, especially when daylight savings hits.
In terms of safety, it's a great idea to choose curtains that don't require any corded hardware, like rod pocket sheer curtains and blockout eyelet curtains. If you opt to use roller blinds or window coverings with chains or cords, you must ensure that these are secured permanently with cleats or tensioners at least 1600 mm from floor height.
Style Tip: At Spotlight, we have a great selection of curtains designed especially with little ones in mind. You can find blackout and room darkening curtains with colourful prints, perfect for updating your child's sleeping space into something fun and exciting!
Kitchens & Bathrooms: Choose Hardwearing Window Coverings
When it comes to covering windows in spaces like kitchens and bathrooms, it's important to consider how blinds and curtains will stand up to the activities these spaces see. Look for window treatments that are not likely to be damaged by steam from a hot shower, or grease from cooking.
Choose Water Resistant Blinds For Your Bathroom
Your bathroom is a very private space but it's also wet and humid so that needs to be high on the priority list when choosing the right window furnishings. Given that bathrooms are naturally full of condensation, it's important to select window treatments that are not prone to water damage - in other words, soft fabric curtains are just not going to be suited to wet spaces.
Materials like plastic or vinyl are perfect for the bathroom as they don't absorb moisture. This in turn means minimal mould and mildew and, consequently, minimal maintenance. Venetian blinds are a great option for bathroom windows as you can adjust the slats to be completely closed for privacy, or tilted open to let light through during the day. Choose from aluminium venetian blinds or faux wood venetian blinds for bathrooms - avoid timber venetians as steam can leave the slats prone to warping over time.
Choose Low Maintenance Window Coverings For Your Kitchen
The kitchen is one of the hardest working zones in your home so you'll want window furnishings that are hardworking too. Of course, you'll want the windows in your kitchen to look as good as the rest of your home but your main concern should be cleaning and maintenance. Kitchens can contain steam, grease and food aromas, which is why blinds are a popular option when it comes to kitchen window furnishings.
Blinds that are made from plastic or metal are ideally suited to the kitchen. Aluminium venetian blinds have naturally smooth surfaces that can be easily wiped down with a cloth or a specialised venetian blind cleaner. If you don't like the cool slickness of aluminium, then faux wood venetian blinds or timber venetian blinds are an excellent alternative for introducing warmth into your kitchen design scheme.
If you're looking for the ultimate in modern kitchen blinds, then roller blinds are always a fabulous design choice. Choose roller blinds with acrylic coatings at the front and back so they can easily be wiped clean if needed.
Cafe curtains are a great way to add a classic touch to more traditional or farmhouse-style kitchens. They feature two separate drops - a short-tier that covers only part of the window at the base and a valance-style header up the top. They can even be used for other small windows in the house such as bathrooms, nurseries, hallways and laundries. Cafe sheer curtains are easy to freshen up with a quick hand wash or a machine wash on a gentle cycle. They'll dry quickly thanks to the synthetic fibre composition, and you can even hang them straight back up on your window while damp.
Styling Your Curtains & Blinds: How To Match To Your Decor
Once you've decided on the right type of window coverings for the different rooms in your home, you'll want to think about how these will best match your interior decor. Here are a few tips & tricks for styling your curtains and blinds.
Exploring Colours, Patterns & Textures
Colours, patterns and textures are the defining features of curtains and blinds so it comes as no surprise that choosing the right design scheme is something everyone labours over. Here are a few tips, styling options and considerations to keep in mind:
- Match your walls: If you love your wall colours you may choose to match your walls with a curtain or blind fabric in a very similar shade, so you're not upstaging other elements of a room. This kind of monochromatic approach might sound boring but it can create a sense of modern and elegant minimalism.
- Go with a solid print or neutral palette: The most popular approach for choosing colours for your curtains and blinds is to select a solid print or colour in a neutral palette. It's a great way to create a sense of harmony and an excellent option for rental properties or if you're planning to sell your home.
- Contrast your walls: If you're feeling brave, bright patterns or colours that contrast with your walls can bring a lot of happiness into the home. This approach will definitely make your window furnishings the centrepiece of the room so you'll want to choose a fabric or pattern that you love - maybe something already used in cushions, rugs or some other element of the room.
- Emphasise a colour from the room's design: Many people will select a main colour from the room's design scheme they wish to emphasise and then choose curtains or blinds to match.
- Patterned vs plain designs: A general rule of thumb to keep in mind is if you have patterned furniture or bedding, go for a solid colour in your curtains. If you have a solid colour in your furniture, consider introducing patterned window treatments into the room.
Handy Design & Installation Tips
- A great design tip for combining curtains and blinds on one window is to select one colour from your patterned curtains, and then use that shade to match in plain fabric for your blinds.
- Hang curtains above or overrun the sides of the window to make them look higher and wider. Fitting curtains above the window frame can give the appearance of more height/width. Make sure you check out our handy guide on how to hang curtains for everything you need to know!
- While it works to mix & match curtains and blinds across the home, it's best to use the same window treatment on all the windows in the one room to create a sense of harmony and consistency.
- Hardware such as curtain rods & tracks can be just as important as colours and patterns when choosing your window treatments. Curtain rods & finials are a great way to add an additional decorative element to your home. Explore our guide on using rods or tracks for more information.
- Complete your installation with decorative accessories like curtain tiebacks & holdbacks. Tiebacks are not only practical but a great way to add a final layer of accent colour or texture to your room.
Find Curtains & Blinds For Every Room At Spotlight
At Spotlight, you can explore our extensive range of curtains and blinds online, where you can have your purchases conveniently delivered to your home. If you have any questions or queries, you can also shop at your local Spotlight store, where our friendly team can help you find everything you need to cover your windows in style.
If you're still unsure about the best types of window coverings for your home - or are after custom treatments like plantation shutters or outdoor awnings - you can also explore Spotlight's Made to Measure options. Call 1300 662 742 or book a FREE in-home measure & quote today!
