apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

If the windows lead to a fantastic, unobstructed view of nature, I say let the rule be damned.

I don't have any window treatments in my place. It helps that I'm on the top floor and I avoid getting dressed near the windows.

I love curtainless windows, even if I do like some curtains and blinds.

I just don't like it when people have theirs closed all the time. Let in some light! Let in some air! Get up and live!!!

I agree with amala...but is any one else worried about how close that tree is to those windows? I see an accident waiting to happen!

Curtainless windows must also be facing something semi private. You can tell who isn't a long time resident of our neighborhood by their curtains. - If you don't have any, then you've been here less than 7 years. Its just so awkward to see people lounging in their living rooms or eating in dining rooms as you walk by.

In Amsterdam the houses rarely have curtains, and you actually do see everyone's interior. I've even seen people eat or have cocktails on the sidewalk with their tables and chairs on warm evenings, so I guess the relation to public space is very different.

In grad school I had a place that backed up to a very wooded area that had great views, and it was tempting to not have any curtains. I changed my mind about that when I was unpacking boxes about midnight on moving-in day and a police officer knocked on my door. He had just gotten a call about a peeping Tom watching me from the woods (the woman next door called the police); he saw the lights on and wanted to warn me about that. I bought curtains the next day.

my rules are pretty much the opposite of yours. no treatments....except perhaps to hide a particularly ugly view, block a draft (though with modern windows this shouldn't be an issue), or to shade a room from heat/sun.

my clean southeast facing bedroom bay allows the sun to greet me in the morning, and as it's the third floor, neighbors really have to want to look in to see anything.

i do have roll blinds above my western front windows to block out the heat and sun at times from may-september, but they were mounted above the window and aren't rolled down too often.

even our light well has three bare windows looking at each other, and the view isn't all that pretty, but the light and breeze they allow in is.

drapes are dust traps and you'd be horrified by the germs that grow on them, particularly in the kitchen and bathroom.

i think curtains are the neckties of the home (and i've pretty much abandoned neckties as well) .

"It's a pretty basic decorating rule - all windows should have some kind of treatment, be it shades, curtains, blinds, or any combination of these parts."

I disagree - Window coverings are only necessary and useful for windows that require a degree of light control and/or privacy.

IMO - What's the point of paying thousands of dollars for windows and then paying even more to cover them up under layers of fabric, shutters, blinds, etc? Might as well have left a blank wall...

As a New Yorker, I AM SO JEALOUS OF THAT VIEW. I imagine squirrels running up and down the branches. I imagine building a tree house for my kids right there!

I have never really liked any window treatment. I love to be able to see outside; see the world, the movement, the weather (Canada is interesting), the clouds, the stars, the people and dogs walking by, the sirens, the traffic. Then late at night when I want to get undressed and tucked into bed, I realize darn it all...they are needed - same is true for kitchens if you like to run to the fridge in the middle of the night. Having said all this, here's my rule: in the country - none required at all.

My semi-transparent rolling blinds still give me a (gauzy) view but they:
(1) protect my art from UV-fading,
(2) cool the place down from the hot sun, which reduces the amount of air-conditioning I need.

When I feel like it, I roll them up... so blinds give me the best of both worlds.

We had our home built over 20 years ago. NO WINDOW TREATMENTS ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF THE HOUSE which faces rolling field and woods. I decided on no curtains/drapes/blinds because we spent so much time on wood trim (staining, poly) I didn't want to cover it up. I like windows without coverings; just the opposite of my daughter and my brother who want windows covered. We don't understand each other.

I think you only need window treatments if people can see into your home.

A solution I saw a lot in The Netherlands was to just have the lower part of windows covered by a bit of white paper. The Dutch also tend to be good about not looking into people's windows, which I think helped a lot with privacy.

I tried to take down the curtains in my san francisco victorian, but the room became unbearably echo-y, so I had to put the dust-rags back up *sigh*.

The back of our house faces woods, so the kitchen and hall bath don't have window treatments. I like all the light coming in.

I adore window treatments - they add a beautiful finishing touch to a room. Pinch pleats on a traverse rod - over pinch pleat sheers: There is nothing more heavenly and more classic. Also, draperies are very insulating - cutting up to 37% of the heat lost (or in) through a window - so they help with energy conservation...they are green. Finally, I think it is spooky indeed - bad feng shui - to have big gaping dark holes (uncovered windows) in your house at night. It is comforting to close your drapes at night, then open them in the morning - a nice ritual. These are good things.

Just say no to window treatments. Look at our house tour, not a curtain or blind to be found. They aren't necessary. They usually make a room seem smaller. They collect dust. If you don't need to cover a window for sleep, mac or privacy then go nude. They are not a required window accessory.

Going without some sort of window treatment is not an option here. I live on the first floor with huge Victorian windows, and I like to sleep nude. And a 13 year old boy's room looks right down into mine.

I think for privacy, SOMETHING on the windows is necessary unless you live in a high rise or in the country.

I've covered a few panes with window film for privacy, but other than that, no window treatments for me. The dust seriously grosses me out.

I learned, when I was a little foreign exchange student, that in Holland people do not tend to have window treatments because there was once a tax on curtains in the house, and since the people have gotten used to living without. I don't really know if it is true but it was a nice story.

I grew up in a house with no window treatments, but it was in a rural town with houses far apart. My current apartment has the ugliest horizontal and vertical blinds, I'm slowly trying to figure out how to get rid of them...

I love bare windows because I love light, so I keep my blinds open during the day. I don't care if people can see me sitting at my dining room table! Privacy is only necessary in the bedroom or bathroom.

I'm sure I'd feel different if I didn't live in a part of Canada that's pitch black from 4:00 pm to 9:30 AM for some parts of the year.

Blinds -- simple, white pleated paper -- are the best solution. The type that can be opened from the top down work really well: you can have the sun shining in without people seeing in, if that worries you.

I agree with the treatment-less crowd. I live in a semi-woodsy area and love that I can sit in my living room and see the trees and the squirrels and the birds without any window treatments obstucting my view. I only have a curtain in the window facing the street because I do want privacy at night, but other than that it's a beautiful open view. I was a little self-conscious about neighbors looking in at first but realized they're too busy living their own lives to peer into my windows with any frequency.

trees outside my windows 'hide' me during the day in the living/bedroom. which is great, because i face the east and get light all day long. but at night, it's curtain time. here in NYC, you just sort of have to assume a few people may look in over the course of an evening otherwise.

I will never understand why people who live in town go without window treatments. I also do not understand why those with window treatments leave them open after dark. Exibitionists? Something to prevent people from looking in is a MUST.

Unobstructed windows are one reason I like SF's center patio homes. I don't suppose I'll ever get used to the many bare 1st and 2nd floor windows because I consider that advertising to thieves.

I have really tall windows in my 2nd floor apartment and am trying out only covering the bottom half ala cafe curtains. I'm also trying to replicate a plastic shower curtain I saw by making fabric curtains with shear top panels. The plastic curtains were cool, but smelled horrible.

I actually don't have window treatments on any of the windows in my apartment. The biggest "window" is really our front door which is a sliding glass door, so the hanging blinds there were really annoying. We frosted the doors for privacy instead.

that view is so beautiful!

My sister's home - designed and built by a friend - has no window coverings. Two things I've noticed:
1. It's extremely difficult to control the house temperature. Summers are the worst.
2. One gets up with the dawn whether one wants to or not.

I didn't know this was a rule. Cover up and adorn and add privacy if you need to, but not if you don't was the rule. A gorgeous window pane with no peepers that can see you? You don't need it. A crappy pane, a crappy view, a yucky room that needs a decoration, people who can see in your space during the day or at night? Yes, you do.

I love textiles, but in our house we have windows i a row from wall to wall, facing the back where we only see trees. To put curtains only on each side of the windows (neer the walls) looks stupid, and to put curtains "in the middle" as well, would kind of ruin the effect of that long uninterrupted stretch of windows where you can only see sky and tree tops.

My parents lived on the 22nd floor of a high rise apartment building for close to 30 years. Our apartment had huge nearly floor-to-ceiling windows with unobstructed views in three directions stretching out 30 miles. My family debated for years about whether there should be window treatments. My parents even bought curtains, but inevitably we could not bear to have even one inch of our incredible view obstructed. So my mom eventually got "pretend" curtain panels, which dressed up the ends of our huge windows without impeding the view.