Trendy Ways to Decorate Windows

Patterns and Fabrics

• Retro patterns and fabrics contrast well with conventional wall colors, upholstery fabrics and furniture. Make the window the center of attention with curtains and draperies fashioned from swirly psychedelic patterns in fluorescent day-glow colors such as lime green, fuchsia, blueberry blue and school-bus yellow. If your room is already full of prints and patterns, choose solid colored fabrics in bright colors that pick up the colors from upholstery and rugs. Mix and match earthy fabrics like canvas and muslin with satin, silk and velvet.

Shades and Blinds

• Blinds are available that create artistic prints and images when the slats are closed and reveal multicolored slats when the window treatment is open. Choose fabric shades for texture and depth or create custom-made shades by applying stencils or appliques on plain white shades. Instead of installing matching blinds and shades on all the windows in a room, choose materials and colors that complement rather that match each other. Give shades and blinds more personality through using odd materials and colors for the strings and attach trinkets and ornaments for the pulls used to open and close them.

Mixed Treatments

• Treat each window as an independent decorating point instead of making all the windows cookie-cutter copies of each other. Use shades on one window and blinds or curtains on other ones. If you want all the windows decorated with curtains, top them with valances in different fabrics and colors. Instead of traditional matching tiebacks, use silver, gold and bronze metallic fabrics for the job. Replace white curtain rods with brass or copper styles with fancy finials on either end.

Simple Decorating Ideas

• Other options to decorate windows include paint, glass treatments and suspended baubles. If your window frames are in good shape, paint them or the trim around them in a bright primary color and forgo coverings. To give the room privacy, apply films to the upper or lower half of the window that give the impression of frosted or pastel-tinted glass. Suspend trinkets and crystals on invisible fishing line at different levels to dress up the window and cast intriguing shadows on the room while letting in the maximum amount of natural light.