We've had someone come out to help us with decorating our house. I'm starting in the Family room. The biggest challenge we have is there isn't a lot of wall so we don't really have much "vertical" interest. We have big windows on one side of the room, big arches on the other, a big built in entertainment center, and the 4th side is completely open to the kitchen.
The recommendation from the designers is to drape the windows (makes sense, we knew we wanted to do that) but to also drape the "columns" of the arches.
Here are a few pictures of the room that I hope show what I mean by the wall of arches:
This is the hallway between living and dining that makes up the wall of arches.
View of empty family room from kitchen, see arches on left, windows on right
View of (part of) arches from opposite angle as above
I know those are not the best pictures, but somehow I dont have a straight on picture of that wall.
So I'm torn on draping the arches, I think i just can't picture it. It would be straight panels in the "columns" with a long, substantial rod going all the way across. Panels on the windows as well. This is the best picture I can find of something similar to what it would look like:

Thoughts on draping arches that arent windows?
If you like the idea of the draped arches, would you do same fabric on windows and arches or different.
Gosh, I'm so bad at all this.
Re: Decorating Help/Opinions needed.
Would the arches be draped on the dining room side as well?
Overall, I am not really a fan of the idea.
So Tasty, So Yummy
we arent doing anything in the dining room, it is so low priority in the budget.
The arches are a great design element but I just feel like that wall is "blah"... i don't know what to do on it to add interest.
I was just having similar thoughts. My daughter loves hiding behind drapes and can pull the curtain really hard. Fortunately, the only places we have them are in the living room behind our furniture so she can't get to them....yet
- Paula Deen to 104.1 KRBE's Producer Eric 9/17/2011
What you are describing sounds like the dressing rooms at XXI. I vote no.
Thanks, you guys make me feel better... I was thinking that I was just being too conservative.
Even though we are getting a good deal on this project, its still $$ and I don't want to take the chance.
We would never close the arch side, I think the idea was just to add something vertical, and add texture.
I think I'm going to do the drapes for the windows because I KNOW I want those then see where we stand once that's done. We do have all our furniture and a rug, just not shown in those pictures as they are older.
I think you're making a good decision not draping the arches. Having been in your house, I can say that the architecture is beautiful enough on it's own. I think draping the arches would just make the room feel fussy.
This.
If you want to add detail to the arches, you could do a simple moulding at the top of each of the columns.. Like, at the highest point where they are still square and not curved.. Then you could paint the area above the moulding a different color, to where it makes the columns look more like columns.
I agree that the drapes everywhere is gonna bea nightmare with kids running around.
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