Anyone know anything about interior design - window treatments in particular?

[ColumboLittleTownOfBethlehem]

Just replaced curtains in living room with off white wide strip wooden venetians. Had to have blinds as we had an A/C unit fitted which due to design of room/house means not enough space on wall between windows for curtain poles.

Problem is, room is currently white, blinds are off white, there is a wooden floor and it now has a kind of echoey uncosy feel due to no material to soak up sound.

Is there such a thing as pretend curtains ie strips of lightly folded cloth hung at the sides of the windows that don't actually draw closed but just add ambience and cosiness/sound absorption.

Sorry if this seems poncey - just a bit cos spent ages convincing DH that the white blinds were the ones when he didn't like them and now they are in they aren't how I expected them to be. The room feels underfurnished.

Also would getting a large shaggy rug help?

a rug would help, the thing is, even with pretend! curtains you still need to hang them on something, could you fit a thin wire ? can you explain abit more about the ac unit, i cant picture where it is iyswim?

would you be able to put up one of these? www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/20079342 - sorry i cant do links!

Could you put Roman blinds on top of the others, hanging them outside the window recess?

Again, it depends if you have enough clearance to hang them there.

OK it's a new build, so the room is a boxy oblong shape, 3 windows all across one of the long walls, well actually its 2 doors on either side of a window in the centre (you know those daft french windows they do on first floor living rooms nowadays which open but have a glass barrier).

So between the central window and the french windows there is a little strip of wall on either side about a meter wide. The A/C unit is about the same width but with a margin of a few inches and is on a level with the top of the windows. To fit it, the guys had to take down the curtain pole (big wooden old fashioned style things with knobs).

Am I making sense?

I think a thin wire could fit, maybe even a track style fixture. I just don't really know anything about stuff like that.

Maybe I could try to take a pic and put it profile.

i get it now! you can get thin wires that probably stand about an inch from the wall and then get curtain panels. they just hang straight down rather than pull but they dress the window up a bit. have a look on the ikea website for ideas, they do the wires and panels. i think quite a few places do these panels now, you just need to make sure its light weight material as a wire wont hold as much as a traditional curtain pole.

Roman blinds attach to a small strip of wood, so you may have space to mount one just above and slightly extended to the sides of the recess.

Thanks! I was hoping something like that existed. I guess I could even make some panels myself...

i would think they are quite easy, hemmed over bit at the top for the wire to go through and weights at the bottom to keep them straight

I don't think roman blinds would suit, Katch, as there is a wooden pelmet fitted to the top inside recess as it is. It would look a bit funny maybe.

Have a look at www.merrick-day.com/acatalog.Roman-Blind-kitshtml.

I just think flat panels might not help with the starkness you talk about.

Sorry merrick-day.com/acatalog.Roman_Blind_kithtml.

Sorry again - use the link to get to the home page then click on Roman Blind Kits.

Yes, you have a point there katch, but the blinds we've got in are quite finished and solid looking with canvas tapes on them and I think blinds on blinds with extra loops/pulls etc would just not work.

I was thinking of panels made of quite a drapey fabric with a print would work well...also there would have to be 6 panels in all so quite a bit of fabric?

But its definitely feeod for thought about the romans - I'll go and have a look at some.

food obviously

I wouldn't go for pretend curtains. We have white wooden shutter type blinds and proper curtains over them.

I think a large rug plus lots of cushions, maybe floor cushions will help. lot's of pictures up too. It probably feels cold and echoey as it's all so new, it does take a while for new deco to 'settle in'.

Yes TDWP that's probably true also. All our furniture is piled up one one side of the room at the moment. We have lots of books which haven't been put on the shelves yet and I think that always seems to make a difference too.

In that case get the furinture back in place, add all the bits and bobs and I'm sure it will look fine.

Could you add a really stunning focal point like a chandelier or a fancy mirror to live things up and draw the eye away from the windows?