What are the Benefits of Window Treatments?

Spring is a great time to plan a project to refreshen your home. It is a great time to design window treatments for these projects too. There are many benefits and solutions that curtains provide. This post will address a few of them.


If you want to let light into your space but want daytime privacy, then read on. Perhaps you have two windows in a room of various heights. If so, the window treatment solution discussed here will create the illusion they are the same height. Or maybe, your open-concept rooms look disjointed. If so, window treatments may be just what the interior designer would order to unite them!

Benefit #1: Lets Light In but Provides Privacy

With the increasing emphasis on energy efficiency, you may be looking for ways to let the sunshine and associated heat in. Sheer window treatments are a popular choice for this purpose, as they allow for plenty of light to filter through while still providing some privacy.

Sheers can help you enjoy a light-filled room. And keep those inquisitive eyes away. Their material is thin enough to let the sunshine in and thick enough to block the inside view. They come in a variety of subtle textures. So they can be stylish and still allow light in. As you can see in the photo above, light is coming in from the west-facing window, but people on the street cannot see the room during the day. So you get sunshine and privacy. Click the following link if you want to know more benefits that sheers have to offer. https://lynteriors.wordpress.com/2022/06/06/sheers-for-summer/

Benefit #2: Curtains Visually Unite Windows of Varying Heights

Drapes Provide Solutions for Mismatched Windows

Dressing up windows of different lengths in the same interior space can be challenging. And it is often difficult to dress a room with two windows of varying heights or sizes. For example, the two windows in this breakfast room were installed at different heights. The smaller window is shorter and looks awkward beside the higher French door side window and French door windows. And a lack of window treatments made this situation painfully obvious.

But when the window treatments were installed, the sheers made them appear the same because the height of the poles and thus the sheers are the same. Now both are visually united because the placement of the hardware help to add harmony, so the different window heights are not as obvious. These windows of varying tallness now appear the same because they are draped with similar dimensions. The hardware and sheers have identical vertical dimensions creating an illusion that they are the same height. Are you able to tell that they were different heights?

If you have windows installed at different heights like the ones pictured below, floor-length drapery panels help them look uniform. Also, drapes suspended from a uniform height create an illusion of same-sized windows. You can see what I mean below. You may even want to mount the curtain rods just below the ceiling throughout the room to give the illusion of large, expansive windows and a higher ceiling. This design gave the room a unified look and downplayed the different heights of the windows. The key is to find window treatments that unify their appearance to some degree. So your room has a cohesive, appealing look.

When dealing with mismatched windows, finding the right solution can seem impossible. Since I trained to find solutions for mismatched windows using window treatments, I can help.

Benefit # 3 Drapes Unify Open Concept Rooms

The kitchen island pictured below has a dark chocolate stain finish. But the breakfast room had no dark chocolate decor or architecture. As a result, the colour schemes in the open-plan kitchen and breakfast room looked imbalanced. It was too light in the breakfast room and dark in the kitchen area.

The window treatment hardware with dark chocolate-finished decorative rods added this much-needed contrast to the light breakfast room. And the cream-coloured linen sheers coordinate with the buttery colour of the cabinets.

Furthermore, the ceiling fixture’s urn-shaped ornamentation echoes the finials at the end of the sheer rod. All these details help to unify the two rooms. The colour of the sheers and the poles and finials tie the two open-concept rooms together to create a coherent look. The similar urn shapes of the sheer rod finials and the urn-shaped ornament on the ceiling pendants help to unite the rooms too.


The benefits window treatments provide include: sheers let light in but provide daytime privacy, they provide a solution for mismatched windows, and they help to unify open plan spaces. If you want help decorating your windows, contact me at asburylynn@gmail.com or click the following link to find other ways to contact me. https://lynteriors.wordpress.com/contact-2/

How to Choose Interior Paint Colours

This post is about interior paint colours and what affects them. I have chosen this topic because recently, I have been doing several consultations with homeowners who wish to carry out their updated room projects or renovations themselves. One of these consultations involved a colour consultation. The homeowner wanted to paint her primary rooms either white or gray. Choosing a white, gray or beige paint colour can be challenging. But some tips can help you pick a paint colour that will work for you.

So I have included tips about what to consider when you choose your paint colours. For example, I will talk about how the undertone can affect the way the colour will look in your room. I will also discuss how sunlight can affect how your paint colour will look. How reflective your paint colour is can also affect the look of the paint colour in your room. Furthermore, other colours close to your wall can affect how the paint colour looks.

During the consultation, the homeowner said she did not like the green that her living room walls sometimes flashed. There are some reasons why this can happen, and this post will discuss these factors.

Why are my Gray Wall Colours Turning Green?

There are a few reasons why this may happen. In this post, I will talk about a number of them. It is almost like you have to be a detective to figure it out! It could be about the undertones in your paint or the furnishings in the room. Or it could be the exposure in your room. Or it could be the LRV of the paint colour. So what is LRV, you may ask? That is the first factor that I will discuss.

Reason #1: High Reflectance Value

Consider how light or dark the colour you choose is. Look at the colour’s LRV to find this out. The LRV of your paint colour affects the light reflected by the paint and the colours reflected by the colour. Colours with an LRV (light reflectance value) of 50% or higher will be lighter coloured and bounces back a lot more light into the room than is absorbed. The higher the LRV, the more light it reflects and the lighter coloured the paint colour. That is why white paint lightens and brightens a room.

White has a high LRV and reflects a lot of light, but it also reflects colours in its environment, such as green from the trees outside your window. So if you have a large window with many trees and grass close to them, then the green will reflect onto your white or light gray walls. If there is a lot of grass or trees outside your window, the sun grabs that green and reflects it on the walls. So if you do not want your walls to look green in the summer, choose a darker colour.

If you still want a room to appear light but do not want the greenery from outside your windows to be reflected on your walls, choose a colour with an LRV between 55 to 65. It will still reflect light but not a colour found outside your window. So if you want a gray or beige wall in your home that does not reflect the colour of your grass outdoors, choose a colour within this range.

Reason #2: Undertones in your Paint

Tip number two is to consider the undertone in your paint. Every paint colour, including white, gray and beige, has an undertone. So pick a colour with an undertone you like. For example, Bleeker beige (HC80) by Benjamin Moore has a gray and yellow-gold undertone. It has more yellow than gray, tipping it into the beige category. But its high percentage of gray creates a soft, subtle beige.

In the photo below, you can see that where the sun is shining on it, there is a slight gray and gold hue. That golden colour is called the undertone. In some places on the wall, it looks like a yellow-orange colour. But most of the wall colour seems a bit more gray-green. Why is that?

Reason #3 North Facing Windows: Sunlight Can Effect Colour

Bleeker beige has a little colour, so it is considered a neutral paint colour. It has a fair amount of gray, so this shade leans into hints of gray. Bleeker beige can look even greyer in a room with north-facing windows. The gray-blue light from a north window can make this beige look a tad gray-green. And the light in winter can make it look like a true gray. The gray northern light looks even grayer in the winter. So if you like a deep warm gray colour for your north-facing room, then bleeker beige may be for you.

Many homeowners, including myself, love the warm gray that warm grays and warm beige colours like bleeker beige have in a north-facing room. I took the photo on a February morning. The blue northern lights balance the golden hue of the bleeker beige, making it look gray. The blue light from the north-facing window and the yellow undertone react with each other to create a bit of green. It is subtle, though.

We like green, so we do not mind that the blue winter light sometimes turns parts of the wall a tad green, but my client did not like green undertones. The light in your room can affect the paint colour you choose, so it is important to be aware of that. So make sure you consider the type of light exposure your room has. Is it east, west, or south or north-facing? It is essential to consider the natural light that comes into the space when choosing the colour for the room.

This room has an east-facing room too. As a result, in the morning, the yellow light of the sunlight also streams into the room. So the yellow light from the morning sun brings out the golden colour of Bleeker beige.

Click on the link below if you want to find out more about how sunlight affects paint colours or if you want to find out how to pick exterior paint colours. ttps://lynteriors.wordpress.com/2022/11/08/how-to-pick-exterior-paint-colours/

Reason #4: Simultaneous Contrast

When I was studying interior decorating at Seneca college, my colour theory professor Kelly Tomkins, had us do an assignment about a phenomenon called simultaneous contrast. It has to do with the rules of colour theory. One of the rules stated, “if 2 complimentary colours lie adjacent to one another, each seems more intense than by itself.” So if you have red accessories such as this vase and red wall art, the red accessories will look redder, and the green undertone on the wall paint will look greener. My client had a red abstract wall art on the wall in the living room, which probably increased the perception of the intensity of the green undertone on her wall.

In conclusion, if you choose white, gray or beige paint colours for your home, be aware of their undertones. Also, make sure you like the colour under all lighting conditions.

One way to test the colour on your walls is to use Samplize by Benjamin Moore. Stick the Samplize on your walls. If you see the undertone, make sure you do not mind the undertone in your room. Also, see how the paint looks throughout the day and under artificial light. Remember to check it at night under artificial light, especially if you spend a lot of time in the room in the evening.

After reading this post, your curiosity may have been piqued. And you may want to know how to pick exterior paint colours too. Similar rules apply. Click the link below to find out how to choose an exterior paint colour. This post goes into more detail about how the sun affects paint colour. It talks about how south-facing, east-facing and west-facing sunlight on walls affects paint, too. ttps://lynteriors.wordpress.com/2022/11/08/how-to-pick-exterior-paint-colours/

I, Lynn Asbury, am the founder of Lynteriors which provides interior decorating services in Aurora, Ontario. My passion is making spaces beautiful, comfortable, and suitable for your lifestyle.

Aurora Interior Design

Aurora Interior Designer

From Concept to Completion

I, Lynn Asbury, the founder of Lynteriors, have lived in Aurora since 2004. Aurora is my lovely town that is north of Toronto. It offers us urban living. And it provides us with country living because every area is so close to trails which I like. Since I live in Aurora, I am in a perfect position to help you create your dream home in Aurora and the York Region. Lynteriors works with clients in Newmarket, Richmond Hill and the surrounding areas.

Testimonial

“We bought a new house that had a number of light fixtures that we did not like and were not to our taste. Lynn came and did a consultation and helped us to choose something that fitted the space and our style much better. There is so much choice out there that it was hard to see the wood for the trees! Lynn has a keen eye and a good sense of style!”

-Megan, Newmarket

Lynteriors has helped homeowners create their dream rooms by supplying them with custom drapery, custom furniture, lighting, flooring, colour consultation, accessories, space planning and more. My passion is to make your spaces beautiful, comfortable and suitable for your lifestyle.

A Recent Google Review

Here is a google review Lynteriors recently received. Thank you Ochelle for the kind review.

By Ochelle Baller

a month ago

When we decided to sell our townhouse, we immediately thought of Lynn! It was summer and a busy time for us. We were away sending off our son to college, and we gave Lynn full reign to prepare the house for listing. We were driving home when we received a call from our real estate agent that someone was interested to see the house before we went live with our listing. We then had to inform Lynn that the house needed to be ready in two days. We arrived around midnight that day, and when I opened the door and walked in, we were amazed by what we saw. The house looked beautiful, fresh and organized. Mind you, I took pride in our place looking clean and clutter less. However, I was impressed by how everything flowed well. Each area of the home showcases the function and the best look. She made great use of what furniture and decorations we already had and added something to bring more life to each room. My husband and I both blurted out! “Do we love it? Or list it?” I particularly love how she decorated two of our bedrooms. In our daughter’s room, she perfectly chose a pink color scheme and the focal point – a beautiful ballerina wall art. She nailed our sons’ room, making it a little boy’s dream bedroom with blue and red bedding color scheme and an airplane model sitting on top of a dresser. Town homes are perfect for young couples and having them envision how to build a life in their new home is very important. And Lynn had it in mind! Another thing I love about Lynn is her attention to detail and storytelling through home decor. In our family room, she placed a metallic horse figurine on the bookshelf. She told me that when she researched the area we live in, she discovered that the name of the trail in our backyard was the name of the previous landowner’s horse. Imagine my surprise! With Lynn’s passion for home decorating and keen expertise, we sold our house over asking. If you want someone to bring out the best in your home, Lynn is your girl! If you want to see the official review click the button below.

Official Google Review

How to Design a Cozy Interior This Winter

Winter is here. A season when you may be spending more time inside and at home. So you may wonder how to make your home cozy, warm and inviting. Especially if you plan to invite family and friends to visit. I will share a few tips that make your home feel comfy no matter what your interior decorating style is.

Include Window Coverings

The first cozy home tip I will share is to add curtains or drapes to your rooms. Sheers and other curtains add visual coziness to a room. Furthermore, they soften the edges of your windows and add a finished and inviting look to your room in winter and summer. And they hide that dark hole of the night (windows) during the winter months.


Consider thermal drapes since they keep the heat in your home better than sheers would in the winter. And if you plan to decorate with home staging in mind, remember to choose neutral-coloured drapes such as warm white. The sheers, for example, in the living room pictured above, are colder white. Without the sheers in the room, it would not look as cozy. This picture window is beautiful but very big. So the sheers soften the window’s edges. And sheers help to create an inviting look.

Invite Nature Inside

Tip number two is to add plants. Plants and flowers have a unique way of breathing life into your room. You, like me, maybe drawn inherently to nature and its greenery. In the winter, there may be little greenery outside in Aurora, Ontario, except for the evergreens! So plants bring that nature indoors, which is very inviting during the dead of winter. If you do not want living plants, you can go faux. They can add warmth and coziness to a space too.

Add Cozy Accessories

  

A mix of throw pillows and rugs will add coziness to a space. A throw blanket to wrap yourself in or cozy up with can help you feel warmer when you feel chilly. Plus, they create a visually warm and inviting look to your space when you display them on your furniture. Many throws have a chunky or furry texture, making them look cozy and adding that warm and inviting look to a room.

It is cold to sit on leather furniture. Throws and pillows add that physical warmth to a room: particularly if the seating has leather upholstery. If a room creates a feeling of well-being for you, chances are you have a cozy element going on in the room. If you need some tips for cozy Christmas decorating, go to: https://lynteriors.wordpress.com/2022/12/01/inspiration-for-cozy-christmas-decor/

Include Warm Wood Furniture

Furniture can add an element or feeling of warmth to your space too. For example, wood furniture can create that warm and cozy feel in your room because of the warm tones that stained wood furniture brings. So add window treatments, plants, throws, pillows and wood furniture to create a cozy interior in your rooms. For cozy Christmas decorating tips go to: https://lynteriors.wordpress.com/2022/12/01/inspiration-for-cozy-christmas-decor/

I, Lynn Asbury, am the founder of Lynteriors which provides interior decorating services in Aurora, Ontario. My passion is making spaces beautiful, comfortable, and suitable for your lifestyle.

If you want to visit the Lynteriors Facebook Page, click the following link: https://www.facebook.com/lynteriors.ca/