An interior design issue I’ve come across a lot recently is the decision to choose either curtains or blinds to hang over their windows, and to be honest, both sides have their benefits and drawbacks. So to help me decide, I will be looking at both objectively.

Firstly, curtains. Curtains are much more stylish in my opinion, they can add to the rooms decoration as they are much softer shaped and can be found in almost any colour, which means you can also decide in what way they contribute to the surroundings. If you have quite an elegant white décor, then the curtains can reflect this perfectly, by standing firm at the sides of the windows and can really bring a room together. However if you have a much more modern style with curved furniture and funky, neutral colours like brown then your curtains can hang low and soft, giving the visual impression of curving, to match the furniture. Its this flexibility that makes me love curtains so much, because they’re easily replaced with a different style if you so wish.

However, blinds also have many positives, and they tend to lend themselves more to the practicality of blinds rather than the aesthetic. That’s not to say that blinds are ugly, you can get some coloured blinds that match the room just like curtains but the texture and the rigidity just don’t seem as good. Blinds are much easier to use however, and offer a certain amount of control that you wouldn’t get if you used curtains, being able to not only pull them open, but to rotate them to decide exactly how much light you want to have in the room. Another advantage of having blinds is that they are much easier to clean and maintain in comparison to the cumbersome curtains, and they also take up a lot less space.

At the end of the day it comes down to personal taste. I will always choose curtains over blinds for the aesthetic reasons and the way in which they are textured over blinds, as I feel blinds are too impersonal for an elegant décor, however I will concede that if you are looking for a modern approach to keeping the light out of your windows I’d have to recommend blinds.