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I'd go floor to ceiling with the curtains. If you can't find a pair that tall, you can always sew additional material in a complimentary color and pattern to the bottom of the curtains to add length.

I would also add a shade like the one in the 2nd photo and hang it well above the top of the doors, creating a trump l'oeil effect.. It will fill in the white space of the wall, making make doors appear taller.

Floor to ceiling, for certain. Then add a large decorative item or picture above the doors to draw the eye up and show off the height of the room.

What Seaside said.

Molly, I once had a similar problem. I bought 120" wide unbleached muslin (for the insane price of $3.10 a yard) and made two flat panels about 11 feet long.

I hung them wall to wall, and I did not hang them all the way to the ceiling, but halfway in-between; it was a very pleasing proportion. I used a black wrought iron curtain rod, which was too rough for the fabric to slide on, and that was good. To go in/out the door, I would gather up a portion and clip it off with a pretty hair clip (because I was too lazy to figure out a tie back over the glass doors).

I subsequently moved, but I have used these two panels over and over again, every where I lived---even as a table cloth over a ping-pong table for a buffet. My only regret is that I didn't buy ALL the 120" muslin that was on sale.

I have to comment on SunnyBlue's ingenuity. When you have a good idea, it just works over and over again, doesn't it? Great story about the muslin panels.

Okay. Hang those curtains high using the full width of that space. You'll get a long, vertical silhouette and it will be very appealing. I'm not a fan of the vertical blinds -- it would be good if you could remove them. Could you hang some bamboo woven shades instead? Hang them high above the actual windows. It will diffuse light and add texture. It will be a kicking feature wall. THe fireplace would normally be a focal point but the fireplace in this room is a little sad. Arrange some cool seating around the fireplace. Visitors will be drawn to the window feature, walk towards it and find the seating area and a warm fire to hang out around. If you can sew, make it work.

Another thing that could help things blend in if you hung the drapes to the ceiling, is to match paint to the color of the drapes and paint that whole wall to match. It might distract from having a lot of wall above the doors.

You could take your drapery all the way to the ceiling and do a few things. You could have a sheer that generally stays closed all the time and then floor to ceiling panels on each side. If you don't have a sheer, you could put a roman shade or woven grass shade and take that to the ceiling and again have floor to ceiling panels on each side. The grass shade will always stay at the length from the ceiling to the top of the window/ door. This will create the illusion of a floor to ceiling window.

OR you could just mount the drapery about 6" above the top of the moulding around the door. While your ceiling is tall, the room looks somewhat narrow. I think floor to ceiling drapery MAY be too overwhelming for the scale of the room even with the tall ceilings. It really depends on the darkness of the fabric and possible pattern of the drapery.

or you could use that extra space to hang a large art piece

I second Seaside- use some shades so it doesn't just look like a white wall. I like the curtains in the first photo- those bold horizontal lines only work with good length without making things seem short (trust me... I take advantage of this in clothes and dresses on my 6' frame!) The benefit of these curtains is that you could make them from 2-3 sets of not-long enough premade panels.

I am very envious of your ceilings... I bump my head on mine whenever I wear heels, and some tall family visitors have gotten some nasty smacks.

Since it's an apartment I probably wouldn't spend as much as ceiling to floor drapes will cost.

If it was your home, I'd definitely go to the ceiling with sheers the length of the wall.

Floor to ceiling. That's my favorite look (especially with high ceilings), but you should really just do what looks the most pleasing to you.

HOW ABOUT THIS,HIGH CURTAINS WITH SHEERS IN BETWEEN TO SOFTEN THE HORIZONTAL LINE OF THE ACTUAL WINDOW TOP./Users/bball/Desktop/TALLCURTAINS.jpg

I have a very similar living room - quite narrow, sliding doors at end, and high ceilings. Full height curtains will definitely be too dominant and over powering. Probably a simple wood or aluminum rood 6" above the doors will have the nicest proportion. Don't worry about a white wall - not everything has to be covered.

If the white wall is too scary, and you're feeling handy you could build a simple T shaped cover wall-to-wall and paint to to match the walls - curtain rod concealed on bottom side, and a line of concealed planters on top, with ivy or similar growing over top or upwards, bringing outdoors in etc.

I also wouldn't hang floor to ceiling curtains. They will simply look dd when opened.

I'd go for blinds or window length curtains, with a really dramatic piece of art or wall sculpture above the window.

I'd also repaint the whole thing much darker, but that's just me.

Lizzykewl, that would be my option too.

Hi Molly, is this a rental? Otherwise I would seriously consider adding a large window above those doors.

If you can paint, I would paint that wall a dramatic color and then hang floor to ceiling drapes in a very basic white/off white color and low key fabric like sailcloth. I think this option is cheaper and easier than looking for just the right piece of art to fill that space.

Hi Molly, I guess I wouldn't have the curtains floor to ceiling but well, everbody's liking is different. You could use your photo and try some variations of length and color in photo shop to find out what you like best. This often helped me to make dicisions and ideas which I though were great turned out totally ugly and the other way round.

Hmmm. I like the ideas above but I'm really skeptical about the floor to ceiling curtain idea given a) the height of the doors compared to the height of the ceiling (the ceiling is sooo much further up there, and in the sample pictures the windows themselves go up to the ceiling), and b) the architectural style of the space. I think it would be hard to hide the fact that there were curtains mounted on wall, not just windows. I'd actually focus first on decorating the space itself, and then hang curtains in the style of your furniture and decor that are a slight bit higher than the doors, but certainly not as high as the ceiling. Good luck!

Full length, accentuates those ceilings and helps hide the fact the sliding door is not centered on that wall.

I'd consider hanging hospital curtain track on the ceiling, the full length of that wall, and hanging very long curtain from it via bead chains and clips. That way, you can pretty much make the curtains from any fabric you want without even having to sew a pole pocket, and the curtains would easily slide away from the door and stay put. I'd probably allow about 18" or so for the bead chain, so the curtains would be almost full height.

But whatever you do, the vertical blinds must go!

I also have a simular window situation although ours is not a sliding glass door but windows that start at hip height. I tried two options; hanging floor to ceiling drapes, and sheers and then the sheers alone. I prefer the sheers alone because they let in a lot of light where as the drapes (granted they were velvet) were too heavy and over powering and cut off the great light that comes in the window. I may try a lighter drape combo with the sheers. Ikea has 120" sheers and curtains for resonable prices - you can add embelishments and they come with iron hem tape if they happen to be too long.

I agree with elizinphilly. Save your money for beautiful art.

Thank you everyone for your comments. We are renting so painting is not really an option, although removing the vertical blinds (which I despise) is theoretically possible. My first thought was to hang the curtains high, high, high, but I agree with elizinphilly that the floor to ceiling route may accentuate how short the windows are in relation to the ceiling. I like the idea of placing art above the window too. Thanks for all the great input!

FLOOR TO CEILING! everyone here is jealous of you! :)

I also say no to the full-length curtains since the door is only about 2/3 the height of the ceiling. Go with proportionate curtains, and for the space above, either hang artwork (prints/canvases) or install a shelf to display some three-dimensional pieces or a vignette of some sort. If you go this route, you could even sneak some storage if you find some decorative suitcases, trunks or boxes.

I couldn't find a better picture than this one in my brief search, but I think that hanging a fairly stiff curtain at a height about six inches above the door, from a wire, would be a good choice (and do get rid of the vertical blinds!).

The muslin idea is good for stiffness, but basically any fabric that is medium-stiff would work. Either grommets in the curtain fabric, or clips, would work. I've also sewn 3/4" brass rings that I got in the plumbing store, to my curtains, and that's a good and cheap look, I think.

Ah, dang, the picture link:

http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/sf/designer/photo-print-curtain-by-bauke-knottnerus-081461

I think the height/style of curtains would kind of depend on the look you were going for and the size of your furniture. This looks like a really fun room to work with.

scormeny....I checked out his whole site. Interesting, but somewhat too odd to be entirely useful. Thanks for posting the link.