How you dress your windows is an important piece of your overall design and a lot of thought should go into the style and fabric used for your bedroom window treatments.

How do you know which window treatment is right in your bedroom?

There are 3 basic types of window treatments that can be used alone or in combinations. Here?s some tips on these basic types and what style of room you might choose them for.

Curtains and Drapes

Curtains and drapes are a style of window treatment that most of us can recognize but there?s many variations on this old standby. If your bedroom design is simple, you might choose just plain sheers as these will go well with many themes including a romantic theme, a modern theme and anything in between.

Valances can be used to soften the top of the window. They are great if you don?t want to cover up a great view but also don?t want the window to look too bare. Typically valances are made from fabric but you can build them form wood and decorate them with an aged or stencilled paint to go with your Tuscan or French country design. Fabric valances can go with almost any bedroom decorating theme depending on the fabric you choose and can be used in conjunction with sheers to give you a bit of privacy.

Drapes are an elegant bedroom window treatment. If you have a romantic, French or Victorian theme some heavy drapes in rich fabrics can transform your bedroom into one fit for a queen. Heavy drapes look best on tall windows, but if you short squatty windows like most homes built in the 60's - 80's don?t let that deter you from using great drapes. You can always just keep them closed to hide the window behind and no one will ever know the difference!

Wooden Shutters and Blinds

Indoor wooden window blinds are a great way to add privacy to your bedroom and can be used alone or with curtains, drapes or valances.

There are 2 styles of shutters - plantation shutters and café shutters.

Plantation shutters cover the whole window and have louvers which can be opened and closed to let light in or provide privacy. These shutters go great with a plantation style look, a country look or a coastal cottage look.

The café shutters are the kind that cover only the bottom half of the window and swing open to let light in. These also look nice in a country or beach style bedroom and are perfect for a Paris apartment style as well.

Fabric Blinds

Fabric blinds add a nice touch to any bedroom and can be decorated and embellished with whatever you want. Fringe, pom-poms and ribbon are just a few of the great ways to make these bedroom window treatments stand out.

Roman blinds work well for childrens rooms and informal styles such as cottage or beach style decor. These shades fold up to expose the window during the day and roll down at night.

Festoon blinds are puffy with lots of fabric. They are quite ornate and work best in a romantic style bedroom such as a Victorian, French or Italian motif. Festoon blinds look best on wide windows and might not be good for small rooms as they can tend to be a bit overwhelming.

Lee Dobbins writes for http://www.bedroom-designs-and-decorations.com where you can learn more about popular bedroom decorating styles.

The list is almost endless: Mini Blinds, Value blinds, wood blinds, faux wood blinds, plantation blinds. Which should you choose? Here is some information that will help you to make a decision about which is the right blinds to purchase. Quality and style can vary, so made sure you understand what you need and want.

When people speak of "Express" blinds or "Value" blinds and "Cut Down" blinds are all basically the same thing: pre-constructed blinds that are partially finished and can be used after a Little intervention on hate part of the store. The come in 2" variation in size and the clerk will pull them out of the inventory and trim them down a little for your specifications. The same is done for hate length, depending upon the length of you window. The quality may be very much the same as that used in premium window coverings, but since they are not custom ordered, but already manufactured in the factory (usually in China), they are much less expensive. You do not have any customization choices, for example as to where the tilt mechanism will be located or the way to raise or lower the blinds. In other words, you don't have a choice which is on the left or which is on the right. The color range may also be limited. We are able to offer both faux and genuine wooden blinds in our value line that are made right here in the United States, in McKinney, Texas. You don't have to settle for cheap foreign imports.

There are discount stores that are able to sell the standard sizes of blinds. They are made to fit common window sizes. The materials used for these are not of the best quality and the fit is rarely perfect. You can get a Value blind for about the same cost, and it will fit perfectly and look great. No window is the same; there are always variations in width, Lent and other dimensions. It is impossible for shelf blinds to fit all windows, so they "sort of" fit most windows of that dimension. Both the length and the width of stock blinds have to accommodate a very wide variety of different windows. When you order stock blinds, you will probably end up with gaps at each side because the width is not perfect, and a big bulge of slats at the bottom because you have too much length.

The lowest cost blinds you can buy are shelf stock blinds. IN order for them to be so low cost, the quality must suffer, and you end up with light weight, cheap material, poor hardware and mechanisms, small choice in both size and color and of course, no warranty. Blinds such as these will not last more than three, maximum five years.

When you order custom blinds, everything is quality from the beginning. The window is properly measured, and the blind is manufactured to perfectly fit the opening. The error factor is only 1/4 inch on each side, and the length will be the correct length, with no bunching before the strong bottom rail. They are made with quality material and fixtures. The companies that supply such quality blinds are Bali, Prestige, Graber, Royal, Levelor, Hunter Douglas and Timber Blinds. They all have the widest range of colors to choose from, including wood hues. You can also choose faux wood in many wood looks, Tris Basswood or Asian wood and composite wood. Quality design centers, upscale retailers and of course on line companies all offer these kinds of blinds.

Adam Peters is a syndicated columnist on different resources like http://www.home-decorating-reviews.com Find more publications about window blind tips at his website.