Typical of ranch houses, ours has a huge picture window in the living room (5 x 6 ft). Perhaps on the original ranch, this allowed you to survey the vast open expanse of your land, 10,000 head of cattle and all. But when this architectural detail was transmitted to suburbia, I guess they forgot that here your nearest neighbor is not 10 miles away, but 10 feet. These modern ranch-dwellers must weigh their need for privacy against their need for light.
We used to have heavy chocolate-colored curtains in our living room, erring on the side of privacy (see for yourself). They were fab, but, in the end, they short-changed us on California’s greatest natural resource; light.
Then, inspiration! we saw these blinds at Home Depot; they are opaque but translucent, an utterly simple and unique feature that amounts to a revolution. This way, even when they are closed, they let in light! It has transformed the room and reminded us why we live in a ranch (and in CA).
When closed they still let in light and ensure privacy and when open they provide the ranch-sized view through the entire window, not just a little slit through the curtains.
They come in solid colors, but we went for this very mod blue and gold pattern; the random staccato rectangles are like Modernist semaphore.
We topped it off by making this pleated gold valance ourselves. It has a slight shimmer that echoes the brass seagull mantlepiece perfectly.
These are the “diffusion glass acrylic” blinds from Bali. We ordered them online from blinds.com. When they arrived, the very bottom slat was split up the middle. I emailed them to perhaps get a replacement slat, but instead the manufacturer sent us an entire duplicate set! Now that’s service!
