My living room has one large window. It is a beautiful window with multiple panes of glass. It floods the light into my living room the entire day.
There are some problems though.
1. It is huge.
2. It is a bay window.
3. The bay incorporates the floor but not the ceiling.
4. There were no quick fixes or ideas anywhere that I was happy with!!!
I wanted a couple things from whatever treatment I was going to put there.
1. I wanted privacy treatment at night that wasn’t visible during the day
2. I wanted semi-privacy during the day with light coming through
3. I wanted it to be pretty
I tried to figure out all the different ways I could outfit this window. The only options I could think of was to use a curtain on the wall but then I wouldn’t be able to put furniture up against the window. When the curtains were closed I’d loose all that floor space. It would also overwhelm the room. I thought to also just cover each window separately with blinds or Roman shades. Both these options were pretty pricey. Did I mention the bay window is twelve feet wide? That’s a lot of fabric and work.
So I decided to get exactly what I needed by coming up with my own solution. Layers. For my privacy at night that wasn’t visible requirement I went with Levolor Cellular blinds. I had to custom order the one for the middle window since the size was so big. The two smaller window blinds I was able to find in the store. They fit perfectly inside each window frame and when pushed up (no cords involved) they blend right in and disappear. Step one complete! I had privacy at night.
Step two required some sheers for day privacy, since this window faces my front yard. It took some figuring out on my part and some shopping in my basement. I found bay window curtain rod connectors at Bed Bath and Beyond and matched them up with 3 separate rods, two smaller sized and one larger one.
I screwed the connectors where the finials would go and mounted the entire piece with a total of four brackets. I used 6 panels of sheer curtains I already had from my old house and hung it up. I now had semi privacy during the day with light coming through.
My last layer was for me and me alone. The first two layers were for convenience and privacy. The next one was to make it look pretty. Emphasis on the pretty! I splurged a bit and bought a huge heavy curtain rod from Pottery Barn. Then I found some simple curtain panels from Country Curtains which I loved. Then were a beautiful cream fabric with texture. I didn’t want the curtains to overwhelm the room. They are not functional since they aren’t wide enough to cover the twelve foot bay window. They are long and billow onto the floor. Pretty.
So my search was done and I’d solved all three of my problems. I didn’t lose any space in my living room. My sofa fits nicely in the bay area. It also does a great job of hiding boxes of Lego’s, dinosaurs, cars and stuffed animals!
