In this week’s Retro Design Dilemma, reader Lori has asked for ideas about window treatments for the living room in her 1949 mid century modern house — which she just moved into, she begs pardon for all the boxes. Hey, we wall understand. Read on to see more of Lori’s living room — and to hear about her window treatment design dilemma.
Thank you, Pam, for inviting me to present my retro design dilemma. Some background on the house first, it’s a 1949 flat roof ranch house. It is on a cul de sac of about 8 houses, 6 of which were built at the same time by the same architect and his friends as an experimental project. They wanted to live near each other as they often entertained together. Most of the houses, like mine, have South facing windows to take advantage of passive solar heat, radiant floor heat and there is a community pocket park for the residents.
Our house came with a wall of windows on the South side. It gets blasted with light during the daytime. This is in our open living and dining area. There are 4 windows in the area, 3 of them being large picture windows. All the windows have short, pinch pleat drapes in a faux silk slub fabric. The drapes only come to the bottom of the sills. I think that this looks a little odd. I don’t mind the color, which is ivory, or the pinch pleats but I’m not keen on the length.
I love the clean lines of our house. The windows are really what makes this simple house special. I’d like to find a way to get privacy and protection from the sun’s glare while not hiding the awesome windows.
My husband and I are not into fussy patterns or designs. We tend to like clean lines, bold stripes or color blocking. We have used pleated shades in other houses, but I’m not sure if this would be sacrilege in this house or not. We absolutely love our views of our woodsy yard and the evening sunsets through our huge windows. I’d saw our style is modern with natural elements and colors.
Getting new pinch pleat drapes is going to be cost prohibitive, I think. The largest picture window is 5×8 ft, add the side windows to that and it’s 12 ft of glass. I’ve thought about adding fabric to the drapes to make them longer but wonder if that’s going to be too difficult.
Thank you for considering my questions! Sorry that our room isn’t tidy, we just moved in 2 weeks ago.
Lori
What a gorgeous house, Lori, and your neighborhood sounds terrific. For the record, be sure to check our entire category of stories about window treatments for midcentury homes. And, Pam did this story, too, outlining 11 key ideas for curtains, shades, blinds and more.
Pam here. I chose the items for the “natural colors” mood board:
- Do I think it is “sacrilege” to use pleated shades in a mid century modern living room? No, I don’t! Pleated shades can be purchased very cost effectively, they are easy to operate, and they get the job done. I found these simple pleated shades on SelectBlinds.com. I actually had been looking for pleated shades myself — for my office — and after poking around the internet doing comparison shopping for as long as I could stand it, landed on this site. Looked to me like they have pretty good prices — and be sure to watch for the coupon deals, which can help save even more. When I buy a pleated shade, I usually choose something neutral, so that I can live with it a long time. This color is Cottonwood. We thought Lori could paint the walls to match. If she ever wants to soften the blinds and the window, she can easily add some fabric panels in front. Finally, I really prefer it if you can mount the shades “inside.”
- For color and gravitas (“weight” to balance with those tile floors), I found a stoneware lamp in rich green from lottelamps.com.
- And for fun over the fireplace, how about a big starburst mirror from Horchow.com. I like the gold of the mirror — it picks up the gold in the fireplace screen, the gold tones of the vintage mid century credenza, and the gold in Lori’s beautiful oriental rugs.
Kate here:
For my take on Lori’s blinds, I chose the IKEA KVARTAL curtain rail system.. The KVARTAL curtain rods are relatively easy to put up and can be configured for panel curtains or as tracks for fabric panels. You can make your own panels out of fabric, paper or other like material or you can buy premade panels from IKEA like the MALIN TRAD curtain panels (this product now no longer available, but check Ikea for current designs) that I chose for the room. The pattern on this curtain panel is not overly “fussy” or loud — and reads almost like a texture from across the room — while up close they coordinate with many of the colors that already exist in the room. The grey ties in with the flooring, the green with her plants and plant table, the red goes well with her rug and the bluish grey could be used as a wall color — which would help visually cool down Lori’s room. To add more red to the room, the Jonathan Adler table lamp from Lamps Plus and the playful, simplistic Kandinsky print from AllPosters.com would also help spread the red accent color around the room.
June Cahill says
I like them – as they are. They are certainly ‘period perfect’ – and seem to filter the light beautifully. Live with them. One year. See how the light changes season to season. Then decide. I moved into my 1963 ranch in Tucson and immediately started making changes. My mother, artist, told me, “live with it one year, then make changes.” I didn’t. I was WRONG. She was RIGHT – don’t you just hate that??;)
Bonnie K says
Hey! I used to design drapes for a living. If you like color blocking perhaps a monochromatic color blocking mimicking the window shapes…you could even throw in a color or two from the rest of the decor in the space or add a solid/basic ribbon to mimic the window mullions.
nina462 says
I like the short drapes & kind of have the same dilemma on how long my drapes should be – because I have floor vents that run the length of the walls where my picture windows are.
My suggestion is to look at magazines from the time period of the house. I have a lot of magazines from the 40’s – early 60’s. (Better Homes & Garden/ American Home etc.).
Sandra says
P.S. Last random thought: we just had the shortest day of the year, December 21-22? This could be the most sunny these get if these architects were really going for the passive solar. By summertime, the sun will probably be higher in the sky and not coming in directly from the same angle.
Sandra says
Random thoughts:
Maybe they had kittens.
I note that the space under the window has already come in handy for the boxes; you couldn’t do that if the drapes were floor-length. I always appreciate being able to walk up to a window, easily, in order to look out, or pull shades, or open them, for example, but putting a narrow table under the window would not be possible if the drapes were long.
If those drapes were longer, there would be visible a hard line between the light coming in above the sill, and the shadow below. Might not create the vertical cleanliness you want. Opaque drapes would not make sense unless you want to show movies during the day…
Annie B. says
I think the window treatment you already have works wonderfully. . Sill length curtains seem perfect for your room. I concur with keeping these ivory pinch pleats for a while until you get a better feel for lighting and furniture placement.
If I had to replace these, I’d go with shutters, blinds, etc.: something clean, angular, and modern looking which I’d paint to match the wall color for a seamless look. Love your house!
Ana says
I like the pinch-pleats you have because they’re unobtrusive in the space (both the color and the length). But if you want a change …
My suggestion would be roman shades or similar length curtains in lined linen or cotton, to help with temperature control. There are some Etsy sellers who make the shades, and you can order them from Tonic Living, which also makes drapes. The blogger behind Brooklyn Limestone used TL to make her nursery drapes and raved about them. Not sure about pricing.
If you like to DIY, here’s a great tutorial I’ve been wanting to try to make roman shades out of mini-blinds:
http://littlegreennotebook.blogspot.com/2009/02/make-shades-out-of-mini-blinds.html
You might also consider less structured curtains (not sure how to describe). My friend Sarah’s house was on Design Sponge a while back and the first picture shows her lined curtains (made by her mom). She used a stained bamboo rod and bamboo curtain rings to hang them; they were a small geometric print in light green/yellow (grellow?).
[Ana – link does not work]
sarahjaneb says
I second the recommendation to look into Tonic Living. That’s where I got the pinch pleat drapes for my 10 foot picture window, and the price was about a third of what Calico Corners quoted me.
Karrol says
I’d go with wood blinds- they are infinitely adjustable for sun, views, etc. you can accent them on the sides with side drapery panels for looks if you want some fabric to soften the look. For draperies, hang at the top of the window below the transom and go to the floor. Your second window could have the curtain hung at the same height as the other wall and hang the blind or other treatment at the same height to camouflage the fact that it’s really lower. Roman shades could be great too!
Carl says
Ditto living with the existing window treatments until you see how the light changes thru the year. That being said – I would consider a product such as Luminette privacy sheers by Hunter Douglas mounted close to the ceiling and hanging below the sill. Nice clean sheer look, with the privacy and light control of vertical blinds. I absolutely love mine, not cheap but a great look.
Kara says
We live in a mid-century house, built in 1965 – it’s sort of a like a Frank Lloyd Wright Usonian house – made entirely of brick with absolutely NO windows, but instead has huge walls of glass, letting the inside out and the outside in. 🙂 We have 3 triple sliders (about 10′ across each) and a 15′ wall of glass with a double slider and 2 stationary floor to ceiling windows (hard to describe, but it’s fantastic and proved QUITE the challenge when we wanted to cover them).
I’d say the answer to your question really, really depends on where in the country (or world) you are located. Do you need to keep the cold out? Then you’d need something different than someone who lives in the south.
We have the curtain tracks from Ikea. I am not a fan of the pinch-pleat – too fussy for MCM design. We live in New England (it’s 7 DEGREES TODAY! Our house is infinitely awesome, and DOWNRIGHT COLD in the winter!). I would use natural fibers (linen, even burlap which is very popular right now). I’d do the double/triple tracks (Ikea) installed along the ceiling, hang sheers on the inside of that track for filtering summer sun and heavier drapes on the outside of the track. Make sure you leave enough room on the side of the windows so you can completely expose that window and push the drapes entirely out of the way. If you sew, you can easily make drapes – and even if you don’t, you can use the iron-on stuff to hem them. Make sure you get a fabric that has a nice “hand” or “drape” to it. If you get a fabric that is too stiff, you will not have nice folds in the fabric. Double the width too, if you make them, so you have plenty of gentle gathers in the drapes. If I knew how, I’d include a few pics to show you what we’ve done!
When our drapes are open, all you see is the windows and the outside. When they are closed, you have a fabric wall – very streamline and clean lines.
Good luck – looks like a great house! 🙂
Lori D says
I’m in New England, too. Thankfully, our windows have been replaced with thermal so there aren’t any drafts. Unfortunately, the new windows are not quite as large as the originals. We have all of the plans and drawings for the house. The original wall of windows almost went to the ground, now they are 3ft. off the floor. The sellers of our house mistakenly believed that this house had Frank Lloyd Wright influences. I thought maybe they were thinking of the Usonian houses but they are full of wood and so much more amazing (lucky you!). Our house has cinder block construction and tile floors. Anyway, this house is much more simple and our vision for it is clean and modern. We had to paint over the Harvest Gold wall paint in the living areas and we have several stained glass light fixtures to remove now. The realtor kept bring up FLW, too. If anything, I’d say this house was tremendously influenced by The Architects Collaborative designs. I adore FLW and especially the Usonians but this house is nothing like them!