Whether you have just moved into a new home or are redecorating a room in your house, choosing the right window treatment can make or break your decorating scheme. There are so many options when it comes to treatments so you’ll need to do your homework to decide if you want blinds, shades or draperies.

Keep in mind the style of the house, your budget, the room the windows are in, and, of course, the windows themselves. Large draperies will look overpowering on small windows, while blinds on large windows may be overwhelming. Think about your color scheme when selecting the treatments.

You also want to think about how easy your window coverings will be to keep clean. Options for blinds include plastic, faux wood or aluminum. With regular dusting and an occasional wipe down with a damp cloth, blinds are fairly easy to maintain. If you pick heavy draperies they will need to be washed or dry-cleaned a couple of times a year.

Do you want your window treatments to provide privacy and block the light or do you want them purely for aesthetic reasons?

To get ideas look through home magazines, go through model homes, surf the web and look at what your friends have done. You definitely want a foundation of what you love before you start looking in stores.

Most importantly, measure, measure, measure! You don’t want to purchase a window covering, get ready to install it and then find out that it doesn’t fit or isn’t long enough.