Designing Your Home Office: Window Treatments

We’re back with another installment of tips and inspiration for designing your home office! A well-designed home office is a perfect example of when functionality and aesthetics go hand in hand. As discussed in a previous article, it’s best to choose a room with a lot of windows for your home office to allow you to work in natural light. But what happens when you have an important meeting and there is a terrible glare on your computer? That’s where window treatments come into play.

If you’re unfamiliar with the ins and outs of interior design, you may be surprised to discover how many different curtains, shades, and draperies exist, and how they each have a specific function and look. You may feel overwhelmed at first, but we’re here to help. Keep reading to find out the 3 best window treatments for your home office!

Top Down Bottom Up Shades

Top Down Bottom Up Shades are perfect for any home office. As suggested in their name, they allow you to bring the top of the shades down and the bottom of the shades up, and even do both at once. This provides the most flexibility in how you position them against the light. It allows you to block out any direct sunlight that is interfering or distracting you from your work, while still letting enough natural light in. If your home office is facing the street, top-down bottom-up shades are great for giving yourself some privacy without blocking out all the light.

Roman Shades

Roman Shades have a beautiful shape that cannot be denied! They add beautiful texture and shape into a room when they are pulled up. When they are down, there are no creases and they are visibly smooth. Roman Shades are great if you have narrower windows or window panels. Having separate Roman Shades again provides you with some more flexibility. You’re able to bring some of them down and leave some of them up whether you’re seeking to block out direct sunlight or get some privacy. Unlike Top Down Bottom Up shades, it’s easy to get your Roman Shades lined with a black-out material, meaning that no light will get in when they’re pulled down. Black-out lining is typically white, which pairs well with all colors and tones.

Pairing Roman Shades with a matching valance adds additional texture to the overall design…especially when the Roman Shades are down. It prevents the windows from looking flat.

Drapery Panels

Drapery Panels are a gorgeous and luxurious choice for your home office. Floor to ceiling drapery panels makes your ceilings look higher, due to the vertical folds in the material. These work very well for larger and wider windows, especially when there isn’t a deep window sill at the bottom. For deep window sills, I would recommend Roman Shades. Drapery Panels are also easily lined with black-out material, which is perfect for keeping the sun out during all those important Zoom calls when you don’t want a glare on your computer screen. Additionally, I like to interline my drapery panels with English Bump Cloth, which insulates and keeps out the cold during the winter and the heat during summer.

Mix and Match!

Out of all the different types of window treatments, my favorite is to mix and match! Having Top Down Bottom Up shades is great for during the day. Pair them with some floor-to-ceiling drapery panels to pull closed during the evening. This is advantageous during both winter and summer, as they’ll help regulate the temperature of your home office overnight so that you’re ready to work in the morning! Layering or even using different types of window treatments on different windows in a room adds a beautiful dimension to your home office.

This room was designed to be both a living room and a home office. On the right-hand side of the room, the built-in fixture was designed with 2 desks for a home office behind the double sets of retractable doors. The desk chairs were also designed to fit behind the double doors! So the room has a double purpose, a family or hearth room with four big club chairs in front of the fireplace and a home office. We used the floor-to-ceiling drapery panels for the larger windows opposite the built-in fixture, and roman shades for the smaller windows on either side of the bespoke fireplace.

Having Trouble Choosing? We’re here to help!

Make your home office uniquely your own with custom-made draperies and shades made in our workroom. This combination of unique textiles and custom designs allows each project to have its own aesthetic, pairing form with functionality based on the room function. From measuring the windows to designing the window treatments to the installation we are truly a one-stop-shop.


Designing your home office: Tips, Ideas, & Inspiration

If you work from home, your home office is one of the most important spaces in your house. So today we’re bringing you more tips, ideas, and inspiration for your home-office. I’ll be taking you through a design I did recently for a gentleman’s home-office renovation, so you can see what the process is like from start to finish!

Choosing a Space

The first step in designing your home office will be choosing where to set it up. Home offices are most effective when you’re able to use an entire room. Having a whole room as a dedicated work space will increase your focus and productivity, by creating a physical separation between work and rest. If possible, choose a room with lots of windows so that you can work in natural light. It’s nice to have some extra space to move around during the day. And if you’re the kind of person who likes to walk around while on the phone, having enough space for that in your office will be a big help!

Starting With the Base

When designing any room, I like to start with the base and work my way from there. Choosing one base element to design the rest of the room around makes it easier to coordinate the design. For this gentlemen’s home office, we decided to keep the layout of the room, which meant the focus was on redesigning what was already there. I started with this beautiful rug full of blues, beige, and mocha colors. Starting with this rug meant that I was able to hold the paint samples and other fabric samples directly against it and see that it would all match. For more tips on choosing the perfect paint color for your home office, check out this article.

For the windows, I chose a beautiful valance with three Roman shades under it. Now that the base of the room is all done, we can start turning it into an office!

Furniture & fixings

The most important part of every home office is of course, the desk. Depending on what type of work you do, it’s best to get a desk that’s large enough for you to work without getting too cluttered. For this client, we opted for a large dark-colored desk with beautiful brass details that match the mocha color of the walls and in the rug. This desk was large enough for him to keep his office essentials on the desktop while still having plenty of space to work. They say working in a clutter-free environment helps increase focus and efficiency. We got a matching cabinet for the corner of the office as well, which provides good storage for any documents and office supplies, as well as a place to keep the phone and other bits.

This room already had built-in bookcases, so we left those, but I added a grass cloth behind the bookcase to add color and texture into the room. We also added a window seat cushion upholstered in a textured mocha linen, as well as two throw cushions in a leopard print cut velvet. This added more texture and provided additional seating in the office. We added in a couple of lamps, for those days when work spills over into the evening. All that’s left is the decor!

A Personal Touch

The decor in your home office should motivate you to work, bring you comfort when it gets stressful, and provide an appropriate background for any video-calls, all without becoming too distracting. It’s a delicate balance. We recommend keeping the decor minimal. For this gentlemen’s office, we kept the wall behind his desk simple, with this gorgeous American flag painting. It provides a lovely splash of color and is appropriate to appear in any video calls he may attend.

The bookshelves are filled with books, pictures, certificates, some sporting decor. The baseball bat, balls, and golf clubs are that extra personal touch to inspire my client throughout his workday!

Interested in renovating? Head to our services page to see how we can help you create and design the home office of your dreams!


Kelley Astore Interiors

Expert Interior Design & Renovation Services of Every Style.

Where We Work

Northern Virginia, Washington, DC,
and the Greater Washington Area

GET IN TOUCH
Connect

Privacy Settings
We use cookies to enhance your experience while using our website. If you are using our Services via a browser you can restrict, block or remove cookies through your web browser settings. We also use content and scripts from third parties that may use tracking technologies. You can selectively provide your consent below to allow such third party embeds. For complete information about the cookies we use, data we collect and how we process them, please check our Privacy Policy
Youtube
Consent to display content from Youtube
Vimeo
Consent to display content from Vimeo
Google Maps
Consent to display content from Google
Call Now ButtonCall Us For A Quote!