Winners By Yards

More than any other public space in the home, the dining room is for indulgence. When the decorating goal is to create an ambience in which foods and wines can be enjoyed at leisure, the scene requires a lush setting: nothing spartan in window treatments or at the walls.

Balloon shade and valance window treatment
©This End Up Furniture Co., Inc.
This treatment features rich folds of fabric on a balloon shade
topped by a tapered valance with a central swag.

The surest way to reach this goal is to use generous expanses of fabric as window treatments. Ample yardages of fabric can puddle to the floor in panels or be scooped up into generous folds of shades for a traditional design; country French decors can feature double curtains and valances in different fabrics for a lavish but not overdone look; and even a contemporary dining room can gain a sense of opulence with a deeply ballooned shade crowned with a tightly gathered valance on a shirred fabric rod -- in contemporary's crisp white palette.

Printed and solid color window treatments
©Fabrics First
What's good once is better twice -- that's the logic behind this window treatment.
Curtains in a printed fabric have their form repeated in a solid, contrasting fabric.

For more decorating ideas around the home, see: