The interior design of a home includes several macro and micro aspects that together make the environment consistent in style, obviously with the joy of those who will live there.
Among furniture, colors, light, floors, accessories and home decor, even curtain design plays an important aesthetic role.
In fact, curtains represent an important detail, capable of making the difference in a variety of aspects: they adjust and filter natural light, they can characterize and create the atmosphere of a room, providing contrasting or harmonious effects with respect to the chosen interior design style, leading to new aesthetic visions.
From the detail to the whole, curtains deserve to be chosen with care because they demand considerations regarding the fabric, obviously the style, the color and the light.
They are not just a detail that furnishes and decorates, but they interface with different aspects of design. And their selection (or the decision not to use them since there are many people who hate them to start) must be made taking into account each one of these aspects.
In this article, we’ll talk about the things you should know about curtain design.
Curtain design for a living room: which aspects to take into account when choosing them
Leaving aside for a moment the other rooms, we wish to focus on the most lived and important environment in the house: the living room, a place of conviviality and relaxation where people spend most of their time when at home.
Curtain design, as explained above, reflects aspects such as fabric, color, light, style, a series of factors that make them one of the most controversial and difficult to be included furnishing accessories (a reason why many people prefer not to use them).
In addition to these factors, also the way in which they are installed, their position and length in relation to the windows may change.
Reasons and variables that make the curtain design for a living room complex indeed because this piece of furniture can radically change the appearance of the room, running the risk of going overboard in terms of the initial project, and therefore not to meet the taste of the client/designer.
Given this "complexity", it must be reiterated that if you use balance and common sense you can avoid every mistake.
Balance and common sense will "lead" you to make a choice consistent and harmonious with the style and the rest of the furniture (unless the style you wish to apply plays on contrasts).
It is the only way to make the right choice as it takes into account all the aspects mentioned above concerning the curtains.
1. The risk of an excessively relevant position
The only real risk that we would like to point out is to give excessive prominence to curtains: in design, furnishing accessories must remain a complement and not take on a predominant role (such as the sofa in the living room or the bed in the bedroom).
As such, make sure that the choice aesthetically supports the entire design system and that it is able to act almost as a gear in the complex mechanism of lines, shapes, light, colors and decorative elements. Neither a protagonist nor a forced underdog.
2. A direct relationship with light
A first step in choosing a curtain design for a living room, and therefore the choice of curtains, is that of choosing the relationship with natural light: how do you wish it to interact with daily lighting? Do you wish curtains to be designed to darken or just to filter?
The options are different and, based on your preferences for "managing" lighting, you will have a guideline to be followed regarding the type of fabrics, patterns, colors and size to be chosen.
After all, it is mainly a question of understanding how important natural light is for your living room.
3. Fabrics can make a difference
As for the materials used for furnishing, fabric has its own structure that is not limited to the material of which it is made, since, based on its type, it may or may not be suitable for a specific use and aesthetic effect.
The lighter and finer materials help, for example, to implement the lighting of the living room: cotton, linen, satin and silk, for example.
The heavier ones, on the other hand, tend to darken it (velvet, brocades). Then there are the synthetic yarns that we honestly recommend only for the bathroom since, apart from any beautiful pattern and their easy handling, they are in any case unsuitable and anti-aesthetic.
Ultimately the choice of fabric depends on the aesthetics and light requirements you have in mind for your living room.
4. Between furnishing and decorative power
When you are involved in curtain design for a living room, you must not forget the curtains' value in terms of furnishing and decorative elements.
It is still a matter of style, which is partly beyond their functionality where your commitment as a designer must focus on a choice that is perfectly tied to the rest of the furniture in the living room: a detail must be inserted into the context.
A choice that hardly affects the fabrics, but that requires attention in and patterns.
5. Types of fastening
The last aspect in curtain design for a living room is of a purely functional nature.
Once you have chosen a specific fabric, with a specific pattern and hue, how do you wish to install the curtains? The possibilities and systems are different, but the most used are mainly two:
- Rod: fixed to the top of the window, it is available in many materials and in some cases a telescopic rod can be used to fit different sizes.
- Rail: it can only be used with very light curtains and allows the curtain to slide through the ropes placed on the sides, representing an extremely minimalist solution.
Are you redesigning your living room
and wish to learn more?
