Dressing a window can be as diverse as you wish. You need to think about what you want to achieve – it may be privacy, adding warmth, functionality or just for decoration.

1. Privacy
This can be in the form of a simple sheer roller blind, which will give a contemporary feel to the room and won’t block out that much light during the day, so you are able to keep them pulled down fully. Alternatively, you could have shutters fitted, though these do tend to make the room look dark. A slightly lighter version would be to have venetian blinds, which can be either wooden or aluminium, and this gives you the option of tilting the slats so you can choose how much privacy you want.

2. Warmth
Full length curtains in a thick fabric will certainly add warmth to a room and you can also interline them, which is like a blanket sandwiched between the main fabric and lining. This gives a really sumptuous look and feel as well as keeping out draughts.

Interlined curtains are great for draughty doors or old cottages.

3. Functionality
How often do you draw curtains? Are you someone who always pulls them shut as soon as the light goes down? If so, choose curtains with a simple neat heading that are easy to pull open and shut with minimal adjustment.

Invest in a good quality track or curtain pole to make the curtains run much more smoothly. Silent Gliss as a brand is certainly the ‘Rolls Royce’ of tracks – try one and you will notice the difference.

4. Decoration
These are used to simply dress the window and not be functional. It may be that you want a roman blind to pull up and down but have ‘dress’ curtains either side, which means that you would never pull them. With this choice you would need less fabric, which means you have the option of choosing a more expensive fabric!

5. Curtain Headings
There are various types of headings but briefly they fall into these names:
Pencil pleat: simple gathered heading.
Pinch pleat: classical pleat pinched into three, also known as French pleat.
Goblet: traditional heading shaped like a goblet – not so commonly used today.
Eyelet: contemporary heading with rings punched into the fabric – no curtain rings are required on your curtain pole and cannot be used on a track.
Wave heading: contemporary heading which folds back into waves – this needs to be fitted onto a specialist track. Simple but needs to be calculated accurately.