Sheers

Sometimes a quick change can make a huge difference in a room.
Take our dining room.  One of the first rooms to be "finished" in the house, there was one little thing that was driving me crazy: the totally practical, totally expensive, total eyesore of a Hunter Douglass blind.

See how I tried to hide it in this picture?  Yeah.  Wait, here it is:

Here's the thing: this guy is a workhorse and completely logical for the space.  Our huge dining room window looks right at our neighbor's front porch, so blocking the bottom half of the window gave us privacy while allowing in a good amount of light and preserving a view of the beautiful white pine.  Yet I have never liked these shades.  I think they're ugly: there, I said it.  They were installed by the previous owner (or the builder), and because they are high quality and pricey, I felt like I had to just live with them.

When summer hit, I found myself opening the blinds more and more for all that light and green, just as the neighbors were spending more and more time outside.  If they are on their porch and we are sitting at our table, it's like we are all at the same party but giving each other the cold shoulder.

On my next trip to Ikea, I grabbed a pair of sheers with a sort of swiss dot along a line.  I put them up just with their tab tops to see if I like the effect.

See the neighbor's house?  Told you it was awkward.  But now, I love the way I can see out without it ever feel like I'm staring at anyone, and I love all the nice soft light.  (I can also open the sheers and use the blinds for a combo of privacy and direct light, as before, but I haven't wanted to do that even once since putting these up.)  Now I just need to decide whether to put them on rings on this rod, pinch pleat them, get a double rod, leave them alone.  I think I'll leave them alone for now and give it a good think.

I recently read something about the return of sheers--possibly in the new House Beautiful, but I can't seem to pin down the source.  The designer was basically saying that with our current desire for light and a good indoor-outdoor connection, sheers are the way to go.  I think I agree.

What about you: would you do sheers?  Do you like the look of layered window treatments?