How to Maximize Natural Light with Minimalist Style
West Coast design integrates the essence of outdoor living by seamlessly weaving surrounding landscapes and natural elements into every feature. Expansive windows and open concepts elegantly capture and infuse homes with the radiant glow of natural light, epitomizing West Coast home design.
Window treatments from Ruffell and Brown will help showcase a home’s stunning views by framing them with the best quality products on the market.
In recent years, West Coast-style homes have evolved from their modernist roots to a more minimalist suburban style, characterized by clean lines, natural materials, and a focus on integrating indoor and outdoor living spaces. Distinctive details such as window coverings can play a crucial role in enhancing both the style and functionality of these homes, offering privacy, light control, and the opportunity to showcase the surrounding vistas.
Come along as we investigate the role that window treatments play in bridging the gap between indoor and outdoor spaces. First, let’s explore a few pointers to consider when choosing minimalist window coverings.
Colours That Bring the Outside In
Step one in this process is choosing the most appropriate colour for the space. The proper selection of colours will help enhance the dramatic silhouettes created by floor-to-ceiling panel windows, often found in West Coast design.
If you can’t decide between going bold or staying neutral, look around. Is most of your décor neutral, or do you have a variety of colours and patterns in your furniture and accessories? A pop of colour can add interest to a room without distracting from your carefully manicured West Coast aesthetic.
Consider what colours you gravitate to when relaxing and enjoying your beautiful panoramic vista. You should carry those natural tones throughout the house.
For example, rocky landscapes and rainforest settings encourage neutral tones and warm finishes. A minimalist approach often leans toward less colour and more neutral tones such as white, black and gray.
Make the right impression with Hunter Douglas Natural Shades. These stylish wood blinds, woven from wood, bamboo, rattan, and other natural fibres, are a simple, stylish choice that complements rather than competes with your stunning view.
Styles That Blend Harmoniously with Nature
Sometimes, you’ll find West Coast homes perched on clifftops or nestled amid towering Douglas fir trees. Windows are a vital feature of West Coast interior design, maintaining sight lines with the surrounding landscape and flooding the home with natural light.
Built to optimize the sun in the winter and the shade in the summer, a West Coast home’s dramatic windows accentuate their simple, sloped rooflines. In addition, carefully selected windows provide light to open-concept interior spaces. West Coast design character traits include vaulted ceilings and exposed post-and-beam timber frame construction.
Minimalist window treatments highlight the architecture’s simple, clean lines. Sheer shades and roller shades carry a modern feel throughout the home. Transitional or banded shades allow customizable light filtering that softens the view and makes them an excellent choice for privacy.
Custom window sheers make a captivating design statement. Easy to maintain, durable, and motorized, they come with cordless lift systems, ideal for managing light in high cantilevered ceilings.
*These West Coast house designs showcase various window shapes and sizes that are typical of the style.
Simple and Understated Hardware
Simple and understated is a good rule of thumb when selecting minimalist window covering hardware. Functional hardware concealed behind the window treatment, tucked into a pocket in the ceiling, or slipped beneath a valance are excellent choices that help maintain the feel of West Coast design in a home.
When it comes to choosing the best window treatments for your needs, Ruffell and Brown’s friendly designers are here to help guide you.
Here are a few of the ways we can help:
- Assisting with finding the correct curtain rod for your fabric’s weight
- Matching the style of rod or rail to complement your fabric choice
- Helping you coordinate your window treatment with the style of the room
- Determining which type of mounting system best accommodates your window location and wall or ceiling type
Tip: For a sleeker, more modern design, select blinds with headrails that will not add visual clutter to the room.
Adding Interest With Shape
West Coast interior design draws attention to simple geometric silhouettes reflecting the rocky outcrops, steep valleys, and rough coastlines in the natural environment. Soaring ceilings that capture sunlight and steep angles that capture the eye are features of West Coast design. Vaulted ceilings are often 30 feet high, with floor-to-ceiling windows that act as the focal point of the room.
Ruffell and Brown can also help you find the perfect window treatments for distinctive window shapes and sizes. Choosing the ideal window treatments for your specific needs will help you maximize and enjoy every aspect of your home’s windows.
Cellular honeycomb shades can be customized to arch-top, palladium, half-round, eyebrow, angle, and octagon configurations. The pleated fabric comes in various colours and styles that maximize privacy and light control.
In addition, honeycomb shades have a pleasing closed-cell design that creates distinct pockets which insulate windows and buffer them from heat and cold, helping to minimize energy bills.
Bonus: Honeycomb shades reduce noise in spaces with hard flooring.
Ruffell and Brown’s Window Treatments Are Tailored for West Coast Elegance
At Ruffell and Brown, we make choosing window treatments easy. Our talented designers excel at selecting window treatments that blend with your design aesthetic and showcase your windows.
Let our professional team optimize the sunlight in your home with our stand-out collection of blinds, shades, drapery, and hardware. Consult a Ruffell and Brown specialist today to discover the perfect window treatment to complement your West Coast-designed home.
Ruffell and Brown’s dedicated interior designers have been providing exceptional customer service on Vancouver Island since 1987. Visit our Victoria, Nanaimo, or Sidney showrooms to view our innovative window treatments firsthand, or browse our online gallery for more examples.
