Living Room Roman Shades: Ideas & Tips to Ring in Charm with Practical Ease
Living rooms wear many hats—hosting zone, gathering place, toddlers’ play area, or even a pop-up workspace! Here, window treatments must cater to shifting needs of light, privacy, and mood—all with a presence that’s both polished and inviting. This is where custom roman shades shine as sculptural style statements and masters of light diffusion. Offering a refined middle ground between sweeping drapes and bland vinyl blinds, roman shades bring function and personality in one sleek package.
Living room roman shades might just be the fashion-forward upgrade your home needs. However, before you rush to Sewn’s promising collection of 2000+ premium fabrics, pause for some pre-shopping considerations. In this blog, our decor specialists share their tried-and-tested ideas—including fabric recommendations and fold style options—so you can make confident, considered design choices all along.
Choose the Right Fabric: Soften Light and Sharpen Style
Since the living room is a versatile space with changing needs, choosing the right fabric always starts with understanding how you use it and the mood it embodies. Here, aesthetics is the king, but the functionality of the space needs fair consideration too.
Start by choosing between ritzy lustre and homespun texture. For an opulent traditional-style parlour, used mostly for formal gatherings, look for deep-hued velvets and exotic silks. In contrast, opt for a crisp cotton or poly-blend for a streamlined, modern minimalist space. Choose a slubbed linen for a rustic setting, but for an urbane boutique-style lounge, sleek cotton blends and neutral-toned velvet roman shades may serve the mandate.
Fabric opacity also plays a role. If you’re after creating a sun-kissed oasis to keep your kids active during homework hours, go for delicate sheer roman shades. But, if strong midday light is your (unwelcome) lot, or the windows open to a busy street, gear up with lightweight non-sheers. And, where the light requirements swing between 'soft diffused light’ and ‘screen-friendly shade’, or where the goal is to look all dressed-up and layered, pair sheer roman shades with non-sheer custom curtains. It will also be an opportunity to mix colors and patterns for a richer, more considered appeal.
HAUL 'EM HOME: Silk Roman Shades | Linen Roman Shades | Cotton Roman Shades
Be Intentional with Palette, Pattern & Trim: Fast Track from Basic to Bespoke
The living room is one of the few spaces in the home where aesthetics can lead because functional needs are moderate. So, let it be an extension of your personality, a vignette of your story, a place that resonates with your ethos and invites guests to participate in it. And that spirit is to be carried into the design choices of your roman shades, too.
A plain neutral plays to minimalist calm, a vibrant floral to an outdoorsy theme, and an earthy vintage plaid to a rustic setting. An opulent classical living room is fittingly dressed in gilded damasks, and an eclectic living room flaunts its globalized taste in soulful tribal prints and culture-symbolic motifs.
Also, aim for overall visual balance. Where a focal point is missing, go for bold prints and striking hues to make one. But where a showstopper chandelier or designer couch needs to be centre stage, keep to subtle patterns and low contrasts for a calm backdrop.
And don’t miss the best part of custom roman shades—the embellishments, which are the clarion signs of bespoke making and thoughtful personalization. Sewn’s curated collection of over 200 border trims is at your disposal, so you can bring a dash of your personality and a distinguished stamp of your decor style to your shade. Think luxuriant silk tassel trims for a Victorian-style flourish, fringe trims for a bohemian flair, and ribbon trims for a sophisticated finesse. Roman shade trims come with a great potential—to add a second tone to a plain fabric, to mix color and pattern, to bring textural variety—and all while maintaining a very small footprint.
Your living room will be a truly personalized space when your roman shades become an unapologetic expression of your taste. And that’s just how you elevate your space from ordinary to deeply personal and unmistakably bespoke.
HAUL 'EM HOME: Damask Roman Shades | Floral Roman Shades | Plain Roman Shades
Pick a Suitable Fold style: Tailor the Silhouette to your Taste
At Sewn, personalization doesn’t stop at palette and pattern. The fold style, the detail that determines the contours and operability of your roman shades, is within your styling ambit. We offer three versatile fold styles—each a unique combination of form and function, so every decor style can find its echo. Once you know the differences, you can choose the one that rhymes with your style and functional needs. We encourage you to visit our Roman Shades Fold Style Guide for a deeper exploration, but here’s a quick overview, with recommendations for the living room:
The flat fold shades have a refined, straight silhouette, with clean-lined folds. While they can mingle with any decor style, they are particularly favoured in modern, masculine, and industrial-style living rooms laid out with sharp edges. They come in two variations: the plain fold with front slats and the flat fold with back slats. Both styles offer fuss-free operation; however, depending on your chosen fabric, one style might look better than the other.
Plain fold roman shades with front slats show the raised silhouettes of their slats on the frontage. This feature brings an architectural quality to shades in plain fabrics that may otherwise look too vanilla.
The flat fold roman shades with back slats, in contrast, have their slats concealed behind the lining and show no sign of their presence on the front. Therefore, this style offers the perfect clean slate where a pattern can shine like a work of art. We especially recommend this style for all horizontal striped and plaid fabrics, and for patterned fabrics whose motifs are oversized or spaced far apart.
The European relaxed roman shades feature the signature scalloped bottom that nods to the Victorian era swags. These shades have no slats, so patterns are presented in the best light. But it is on the quiet canvas of plain fabrics that their signature curve truly gets defined. The European relaxed style accentuates the overall vibe of a fabric, be it the breezy charm of linen and cotton or the glamorous sheen of silk and velvet. It is the ideal choice for living rooms where the roman shades are primarily aesthetic dressings, left stationary in a partially open position.
Fix the Mounting Position: Let Window Dimensions Guide the Choice
Roman shades can be mounted in two positions: inside the window frame/recess or outside it. For a detailed comparative analysis of both mounting positions, we invite you to visit our blog on Inside Mount Vs Outside Mount Roman Shades. For now, here’s our quick take on living room roman shades:
Inside-mounting looks very tailored with its frame-to-frame fitting and helps show off ornate window trims. However, it is not the best option for a small window, as the shade stacks within the window frame when folded up, slightly compromising the free flow of light and air.
Outside-mounting, when done right, has alluring benefits for small living room windows. Affix the shade a few inches above the window trim, so it can stack on the wall, and leave the entire window free for use when raised. You can even mask the smallness of the window by going for slightly oversized shades that extend a few inches beyond the frame on all sides.
The bottom line is this: In a living room where daylight is at a premium because of small windows, opt for the outside mounting position to maximize light. For generously sized windows, however, where such a camouflage is not required, go with whatever suits your style.
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Be Mindful of the Recess Space Available
Hardware for Sewn’s roman shades needs a minimum of two inches of flat, drillable surface to be mounted securely. If your window frame/recess is too shallow and does not offer this, inside-mounting a shade will not be viable. In these settings, outside-mounted shades become your default saviors.
Decide on the Number of Shades: Balance Weight and Coverage
In case you’re dressing a bank of multiple continuous windows in your dining room, you will need to decide if you’d like one single wide shade or multiple narrow shades. Well, the answer will depend on the size of the bank, the choice/weight of fabric, and a few other considerations.
To start, extra-wide shades, especially those sewn with heavy fabrics, tend to be harder to operate; hence, we favor keeping to a maximum shade width of 96 inches. For windows wider than this measure, we recommend going for multiple shades instead of one sweeping panel, and fortunately, this approach has its attractive bonus points: Where single-shade coverage will force you to choose between full coverage and zero coverage, multiple panels let you tune the coverage to your requirements—raising and folding down each shade, based on the desired level of light and privacy.
Shop Living Room Roman Shades at Sewn
The living room might be the most used area of the home, where memorable moments with family and friends are in the making. A well-considered roman shade will help curate the ambience that suits the multiple roles this space plays. We hope this blog has given you fresh inspiration and the desired know-how to launch into your living room decor with confidence. Whatever rhymes with your style—pastel cotton, vibrant velvet, or iridescent silk, Sewn has it all. So, wait no more, get to the aisle and pick your favorite living room roman shade now.
