How to Choose the Right Motorized Window Shade Style for Your Home

When Charlotte Smith, the creative brain behind At Charlotte’s House, decided to flip a three-bedroom Connecticut bungalow, she knew window treatments that balance on-trend design with smart-home automation would be key to enticing potential buyers.

Charlotte loves using light and bright interiors to bring out the best in her colorful designs. That’s why removing the existing heavy draperies and sheer curtains that blocked most of the sunlight from the front foyer, living room, and dining room windows was one of the first things she did. Charlotte wanted a clean, modern look, so she updated the window trim, removed the wallpaper, and painted everything white.

Should window treatments be the same throughout the house?

Before we dive into the details, let’s dispel a common interior decor myth: You don’t need to use the same type of window treatment for rooms that share an open floor plan or connect through archways.

In Charlotte’s flip house, the dining and living rooms and front foyer all connect, so she needed shades that could unify while also giving each space a unique look. She customized the color and style of LEVOLOR InMotion™ Motorized Natural Shades and LEVOLOR InMotion Motorized Roman Shades to fit each room’s design while adding motorization across the board.  Motorized shades were a must-have because they make life easier for her as a seller and ultimately simplify life for the buyers who purchase the home.

Keep reading to see how she customized the colors, trim, valance, and fold styles for a unique look in each room. But first, let’s walk through how she uses motorized shades while showing the home and potential automation benefits for the future owners.

Motorized shades combine smart-home integration with versatile design features

Because it’s a flip house, Charlotte wanted the convenience of being able to adjust the shades even on days when she wasn’t at the house. She added the InMotion hub to her motorized shades, enabling her to connect her shades to Amazon Alexa for smart-home automation and scheduling.

For example, she uses the LEVOLOR InMotion app to create scheduled lighting scenes for the living room, dining room, and front foyer. A “House Showing” scene activates at 7 a.m. to open all shades until they cover just the top third of the windows so the home is ready for prospective buyer tours.

A “Buttoned Up” routine triggers nightly at 8 p.m. to fully close all shades and help ensure the unoccupied house is secure.

• Brunch time: Open the dining room shades midway on Sundays for brunch with friends.
• Homework: Fully open the dining room shades from 3 to 5 p.m. daily for maximum natural light during study time.
• Welcome home: Close the front foyer shades daily at 5 p.m. and reopen them at 6 a.m. to provide a cozy entry area where family members can hang their coats and store their keys.
• Winter nights: Fully close the living room shades at 4:30 p.m. daily from November through mid-March for privacy during shorter winter days.
• Vacation mode: Close shades in the foyer and dining room at 9 p.m. nightly and reopen them at 8 a.m. Close the living room shades at 6 p.m. nightly and reopen them at 8 a.m.

How to customize window treatments to get the look you want

Customization isn’t limited to size and fabric color. It includes everything from lift controls (such as the motorization Charlotte selected) and mount style to design accents and light control. Before exploring our window treatment customization guide, see how Charlotte crafted just the right window treatments for her flip home.

• Filter the light: Charlotte opted for no liner on the living room and foyer shades. This maximized light filtering through the shade fabric while still allowing some privacy. She chose light-filtering liners for the dining room windows to provide a consistent exterior appearance on the front of the house.
• Create a tailored look: She went with the classic valance on all shades for a consistent look throughout the rooms. For the Roman Shades, she selected the flat-fold style, so they have a similar appearance to the Natural Shades when closed, as opposed to the draped look of the soft-fold Roman Shade style.
• Emphasize the window molding: She chose inside mount for all shades to emphasize the window molding as another unifying design element.

Charlotte customized her shades to give each space a unique look:

• Different but complementary colors: Natural Shades in Bay Weave White allowed Charlotte to maintain a neutral palette with pops of color coming from the art, rug, pouf, and pillows. In the dining room and foyer, two shades of blue — Bay Weave Blue Jay and Forre Denim — complement the bold colors found in the furnishings in each space.
• Trim as a subtle design accent: Black trim on the living room Natural Shades mimics the lines found in the coffee table and framed art.

Ready to simplify your life with smart-home-integrated window treatments and give your home a decor refresh? Order free swatches to see if motorized, room-darkening Natural Shades are the right fit for your home. Custom orders ship free.