The maximum number of requests I have ever got for a post on any topic is this one. How to choose curtains. Usually I might have list down a set of rules to follow. But I’ve realised that I don’t really follow one set of rules every time. Why I choose a curtain, blind or sheer or how high and wide I take the channels, or whether I go for a heavy pattern or a light colour, all depend on so many little factors.

How I Choose Curtains

So I’m not making a set of rules for this one. Instead, I’ll share with you all the different window treatments I’ve selected in various projects along with the reasons why I selected them. And that should give you a fair idea of how to choose curtains.

Bedroom Curtains

Usually, in a bedroom, I go with two layers of curtains, one heavy drape and the other sheer. The sheer curtains are perfect to use during the daytime when you don’t want to make the room completely dark. You might have direct sunlight streaming into your bedroom at certain times during the day, or just that the light outside is too bright.

Drawing the sheer curtains filters out the sharpness of the light and also cuts down the heat. What you get is a soft, dreamy, cool light in your room that is so much more pleasant to be in.

My Bedroom

The wall above the window here also had to take the AC unit, so in my bedroom we made a wooden pelmet all the way from the ceiling down. It not only holds the curtains channels at the bottom, it also covers all the AC piping behind it on top.

Also note how we’ve taken the pelmet right across the wall from one end to the other. Though the window in this room is not wall to wall, the curtains are. This helps in two ways. Firstly, it makes the room look wider. Secondly, when you draw the curtains, they gather on the walls on the sides of the windows instead of over the window itself. This allows more light in and makes the window look bigger when the curtains are drawn.

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I had a bright yellow chair in my room, which had set the colour scheme of this room – mostly white with pops of yellow to brighten things up. Try as hard as I may, I couldn’t find a happy yellow print for the curtains. I wanted a simple stripe or a geometric pattern, instead all I could find were bright multicolour prints like yellow flowers with green leaves and such.

And then I found this plain chenille which was just the right shade of yellow. I layered it with this delicately embroidered tree of life sheer, placing the sheer in front of the yellow curtain. In this case, the sheer not only filters the light, but also tones down the bright block of yellow of the curtain.

My Son’s Bedroom

Finding just the right fabrics for my son’s blue and red bedroom was proving to be quite a challenge too. Until I found this stipe that I absolutely loved. Though this wasn’t available in blue AND red, it was available in both the colours separately. And both the fabrics were beautiful.

So I combined both the fabrics to make curtains for this bedroom. We used a red border on the top and bottom of the otherwise blue curtains, and it fit in so beautifully with the rest of his bedroom.

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My Daughter’s Bedroom

Just as with the master bedroom, the AC had to go on the pelmets of these windows too. And so we’ve used the same type of plywood panelling on all these windows, which hides the AC pipes above and supports the curtain channels below.

Also note how the curtain slides behind the storage on the left side. Whenever we are making storage along a window, I make sure it starts only after the pelmet line, so that the curtains do not come and gather in front of it, but slide behind it when drawn.

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We had planned this jungle themed bedroom in black, white and green. The fabric I liked most for this room were these embroidered flowers gently swaying in the breeze. This though, is a sheer fabric. What we did here was to line it with blackout lining so that it blocks out the light when drawn and works well as a heavy drape.

The Guest Room

This room, for a change, didn’t have the AC on the window wall. which meant there was no compulsion to get a pelmet made here. We went with a simple rod here instead of curtain channels.

Usually I choose curtain channels over rods every time. I find the curtains sliding seamlessly under the pelmet is a much neater finish than a curtain rod. Also, light tends to peep into the room from the top of the curtain and rod when there is no pelmet to block it. This is especially annoying in bedrooms where you have used blackout curtains, and the rest of the room is pitch dark.

I decided to go with these eyelets instead of curtain rings here, and I love the way the curtain hangs on the rod thanks to these. (As you can see, I’m not too fond of the rings.) But though these look great, they are quite a pain to move along the rod. Compared to the gentle tug with two fingers required to move a curtain on channels, this is almost like going to war.

So yet again, the channel wins over the rod for me!

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This print here was a no brainer. This is a blue room with lots of bold Indian prints. The Ikat just begged to be selected here.

Neutral Bedroom

This is another window which had to accommodate the AC too. You can also see how we’ve taken the pelmet end to end. The mirror cabinet on the right and the TV unit on the left both start ahead of the pelmet so that the curtains can easily slide behind them.

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As the name suggests, we weren’t using strong colour in the room, which we compensated by using a strong pattern on the sheer. Its silhouette against the light coming in creates drama I so love.

Here too, we layered the sheer in front of the heavy drape because it has a richer pattern compared to the almost plain heavy drape.

Garden Style Vintage Bedroom

In this bedroom though, we went with simple textures on both the curtains because we had all the drama we needed in our wallpaper, and didn’t want to take away any attention from it.

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Pretty Nursery

To choose curtains for this room, we went with soft, pretty pastels. The children’s playground theme on the curtains is in the same soft colours as the rest of the room. Since this was a bigger print, we balanced that with tiny embroidered flowers in pastel colours on the sheer curtains.

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Pink & Lavender Room

Here too, we made the bookshelves on either side in line with the pelmet above, so that the curtains can slide behind them when drawn open. The mattress below is also a few inches away from the glass, allowing the curtains to fall into the gap between the two.

In terms of selection of fabric, we went with a bright pop of colour in the curtains. The rest of the room, from the baby pink soft board frame to the light lavender polka dots on the wallpaper and the soft board fabric, is almost entirely done in soft pastels. The curtains give the room the touch of happy brightness that we were looking for.

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Pretty Pastel Bedroom

Two layers of curtains were essential in this parents’ room given the large expanse of window running across more than an entire wall here. The glare can be harsh during the day, and yet you may not want to cut off the light completely.

Yet, giving enough place for two sets of curtains to fall on the cill would mean making the mattress that much smaller to fit them in behind it. So we decided to mix things up here and choose curtains and blinds for this window.

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The colour scheme of green and peach is obvious when you look at the window. By using the large, green paisley print with a self striped peach sheer fabric, we balanced both the colour and pattern of both the fabrics.

Black & White Bedroom

No AC was required on the window wall in this room, so we dropped the pelmet here all the way from the ceiling. I love this look and how it adds so much height to the room.

Once again, since this room was not going to be about colour, we made sure we had enough pattern to keep it exciting. This means we had to choose curtains that were bold and would resonate with the story of the rest of room.

We loved the pretty embroidered pattern on the heavy drape as soon as we saw it. This meant the sheer had to be simpler to balance it out. This ombre grey was just right, giving us the drama without clashing with our pattern.

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Teen Bedroom

The window in our teen bedroom was just the opposite… small and restricted. So we went with blinds here instead of curtains. This way we didn’t need a pelmet above to hide the channels, which would have made the window look smaller. Also, rolling up the blinds blocks less of the open space than drawing the curtains apart which has them hanging on either side, blocking the light.

The simple geometric pattern adds interest to an otherwise plain, white wall.

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Moody Teen Bedroom

Do you remember our almost fully grey bedroom for this teenage boy? It was easy to choose curtains for this room. We went with a simple self stripe in grey to go with the moody vibes of the room.

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Guest Bedroom

Here, for a change, we found a pretty floral print for the sheers instead of the heavy drapes. So this time we balanced it by flipping it around… A pattern on the sheer paired with a simple heavy curtain.

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Living Room Curtains

Though heavy drapes are essential in bedrooms, both for privacy and to block out the light when you sleep, they aren’t that important in living rooms. Whether we choose curtains or sheers or both in a living room will depend on the situation in that particular room.

Modern Tropical Living Room

We decided to go with both in this living room because we have a television here. You can see the glare of light on the TV even in this pic, so watching television will be next to impossible here unless light coming in from that huge window is blocked. And so we had to go in for a heavy drape here, along with the sheer.

We selected patterns for both the fabrics since both are light patterns and don’t clash with each other.

Here too, we had the pelmet drop right from the ceiling, taking the curtains all the way up and adding height to a room which is otherwise characterised by the length of the wall to wall windows.

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My Parents’ Living Room

We used only heavy drapes in this living room because we have place for only one curtain channel in the pelmet beyond the false ceiling here. The TV is on the wall directly opposite the window, We had to be able to cut out the light to reduce the glare on the TV and so we decided to choose curtains over sheers here.

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My Living Room

We don’t have this problem in our living room because we don’t have a television here. Add to that the pretty balcony outside and no building right in front of it, so no one is peeking into our living room, and we didn’t have any privacy issue either. So we went with only these pretty embroidered sheers in our living room.

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Em’s Rental Living Room

Though Em did have a TV in her living room, she didn’t want to go with a heavy drape in here either. She preferred the light, airy look and we decided to go with only sheer curtains here too. Notice how the light from behind helps to show off the embroidered pattern in both these cases?

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Let’s Go Boho Living Room

In both this living room and the next, the windows are small and restricted within a certain frame. Curtains in here would also come in the way of anyone leaning back on the window seat. So we decided not to choose curtains here and go for blinds instead.

A bold pattern was also a must, since we were looking for sensory overload in this bohemian space.

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Haveli Style Living Room

The blinds we’ve used here are quite different from those we have above. We wanted a rich, brocade look to go with the haveli style of this space. We selected dress material in blue and gold which are the colours of the room. The border was purchased from a local lace vendor and the tailor put it all together to make these beautiful blinds.

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Home Offices

I like to treat a home office like a mini living room. It’s not only a place for work, but also the place you meet visitors and clients. So not only does it have to be functional, like any office, but also warm, welcoming and beautiful like a living room.

My Studio

Though I do have a lot of study and storage space in my home office, I like to have it looking inviting not just for my clients, but also myself since I spend most of my day here. Curtains play an important part in that because of the softness they bring to any space.

At no point would I need to be sitting in complete darkness here, nor was there any privacy issue outside the window, and so I selected only sheers for this space.

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The black and white printed pattern went perfect with the rest of the space, which was mostly black and white. I added this lace and trim along the inner edges to add the pop of colour.

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Mom’s Home Office

Due to the same reasons as those mentioned above, we went with only sheers in mom’s home office too. Though you can’t really tell in this light, the fabric has pretty orange flowers and blends in beautifully with the rest of the fabrics and colours of this room.

We decided to fit the curtains into the window rather than taking it across the walls here because of the odd size and position of the window. Usually, when we use the pelmet across the room, I prefer painting it the same colour as the wall so that it blends in with it. Here, since it’s only a small pelmet we decided to polish it so that it makes a sort of frame for the curtains.

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That wraps up the list of curtains I’ve used over the last few projects. I hope discussing the thought process behind how I choose curtains, will help you to make those decisions yourself when you choose yours.

Also, do read this post on How To Create A Colour Scheme For Your Room to help you with choosing the patterns and colours of your fabrics.

Do write in with all questions and comments and I will help the best I can.

Until next time,