FCS Issue
Don't Forget the Windows

Imagine your dream room - you know, the one you picture in your mind as being ideal, the one you would like to build someday. Is your room large, airy and spacious with huge windows that look out onto a beautiful landscape? Or is it small and cozy with a bay window that invites you to sit close by with a good book? Any way you picture the ideal room, windows are an integral part of the whole look.

Windows are necessary in a room to keep it from feeling like a boxy enclosure, and to provide natural light, natural air and a view. Window treatments enhance the positive properties of a window and weaken its negative properties. In the summer, a window treatment can keep the heat gain through a window to a minimum without blocking the view. At night a window treatment can provide the privacy a window cannot provide alone. Window treatments can give the homeowner control over the amount and type of light that comes through the window, decreasing the risk of fading furniture and glare.

The placement of window treatments can give the illusion of space. Notice in the following pictures how much larger the window seems when the window treatment goes to the ceiling, extends past the edge of the window, and goes to the floor.

The following two pictures, provided courtesy of Crab Apple Farm Interiors, West Chester, Pa., give an even more dramatic example of window treatments that enhance the size of a room. In the first picture the window treatment actually cuts the window in half. The window treatment in the second picture enhances the height of the window and leads the eye upward, creating an illusion of height and space.

Window treatments can enhance the formality of a room, or provide softness and interest to an informal room.

Windows are one of the most important architectural elements of a building, and window treatments make them function properly. Every interior design scheme specifies floor coverings and wall coverings. Window coverings should also be included to complete the design scheme and make the whole interior feel inviting and "user friendly."

McKay Murray, Certified Window Treatment Consultant
C. C. McKay and Co.