Okay, guys—and I’m referring to the classic “don’t know how to decorate” guys—you might actually want to pay attention when it comes to covering your windows. Proper drapery fabric can bring a room together. From a stylistic point of view, it can provide continuity with the rest of the room or a needed contrast. Drapery also provides important physical benefits for the insulation of a room. If you’re a Northerner like me, you know what I mean. Sit near a window in the dead of winter with the curtains up and the drapes open and just feel the heat escape the room through the window. I’ve done it … wanted to let the light in, but I could feel the heat leaving the room and the skin on my back trying to crawl to my front. Even with the curtains down, since they were cheap and thin, I still regularly froze. It wasn’t until my girlfriend talked about shopping for proper drapes. I discovered how little I actually knew, and how color isn’t the only thing that matters but also the pattern and the drapery fabric. 

Now I’ll admit this was more fun than I expected. It wasn’t exciting, but it was fun to take control over how my apartment looked. I didn’t have a ton of options since the apartment was small and it would violate my lease to repaint the walls. In the end, we settled on a light color with a wave pattern on it. In terms of the drapery fabric, we went with cotton. Having proper drapes behind me helped keep the cold out from the windows and having chosen one of the focal elements in the room, it also helped me feel more at home in what was otherwise just a small apartment.

Personally, I think the choice in drapery fabric was the most important part, because of the insulation value. We ended up with a hearty set of drapes, which netted unexpected benefits. It wasn’t just the ability of the drapes to keep the cold out, but because we lived in the city, one of the problems we had was cars driving by at night on a busy street, which would often startle us awake. Despite two years in the city, I never really adapted to the traffic outside my window. Drapes of the right drapery fabric helped with this, the extra layer of cloth muffling the sound and helping to block the light out. I’m not saying that proper drapery is the only thing a room needs, but I’m saying great drapes made of the right drapery fabric can help improve the look and feel of a room a lot more than you’d expect.