New Roman Shades in the Kitchen

When we moved into our house two and a half years ago we remodeled the kitchen a few months after moving in. The kitchen was so depressing to me. I hated being in it. It just felt dark and heavy. We had put off remodeling the kitchen right away because we thought we might do an addition to the kitchen. But we decided to put off the addition and reface the kitchen cabinets and get new appliances and tile. The finishing details were the window treatments. I knew I wanted to do roman shades but just didn’t know where anyone local to make Roman Shades that were inside mount. I happened to be shopping at Bed and Bath and found some Roman Shades that were on clearance and would work if we mounted them outside our window. They looked decent. But I didn’t love them and knew inside mount would look 100 times better. I was thrilled when Barn and Willow reached out to me about working with them on window treatments. I get asked about the Roman Shades in our kitchen so often, I am happy now to have a  a great source to refer people to that I have actually used myself!

Let’s go back down memory lane for a bit….

This is what the kitchen looked like before- Can you see why I got depressed here?

And that was what it looked like in the middle of our kitchen remodel. Even taking out that piece of cabinet that blocked the window made the biggest difference.

And this is what it looked like with the white roman shades that were mounted on the outside.

I posted this picture on my Instagram Stories asking for some help on deciding what color of fabric to do from Barn and Willow. I REALLY liked the dark fabric option called “Belgian Flax Shale” in Linen. I stared to think I should play it safe and go with one of the lighter colors. Don’t ask me why I was trying to be safe with the tile I have in this kitchen… it is anything but safe. I was thrilled when I started receiving comments and direct messages from my readers saying they liked the darker color best too! 

You can order FREE swatches of fabric from Barn and Willow HERE.

Everyone liked that the darker roman shades would tie in my dark floor tile and also be a nice pop of color between the white cabinets. And it really did just that.

Here is another BEFORE of the white Roman Shades, mounted outside the window.

And here is an AFTER with the dark Roman Shades mounted inside the window-

We went with Shale and a Flat Style HERE

I want to point out that mounting your Roman Shades outside your window is not bad or ugly. Sometimes that is the only way you CAN mount them. You have to make sure that you can actually drill inside the window to hang them. Typically you have to have a wood frame or wood trim around your windows so the screws can go through something to hang the Roman Shade. So keep that in mind when ordering your own Roman Shades. Here is a nice chart on how to measure for Roman Shades either inside mount or outside mount.

Our kitchen is truly the heart of our home. We spend majority of our time in this little space. So investing in nice Roman Shades that actually function really well to block out light when it is too bright in our eyes for homework is important. And not to mention they really complete the space.

I think Finn likes the Roman Shades too:)

Now you can see why I decided to paint our door a lighter gray. It used to be a dark gray and would not have worked with the dark fabric. (Read about our door paint change HERE).

Barn and Willow offered a coupon code to all of my readers for 10% off with code- BW&NESTINGWITHGRACE.

Please feel free to email me at [email protected] if you need help deciding on a fabric for your window treatments!

See more of our kitchen remodel details HERE.

Also I wanted to share that I will be blogging all about our kitchen banquette remodel on Monday! Just waiting for some shelves that we are going to be adding to this area (to hide that weird plug in the middle of the wall?! #oldhouse).

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