Fresh Ideas For Your Home - Indoor/Outdoor Spaces

Blending your indoor and outdoor living spaces enhances summer enjoyment.

A seamless transition will extend your indoor environment, creating an outdoor living area that feels like an extension of your indoor space. This makes for a seamless and unified transition. It’s a synthesis of style that blends outdoor and indoor living. 

If you focus on your outdoor living space as much as your indoor design style, you’ll gain a welcoming look that makes it easy to glide effortlessly from indoors to outdoors and back. You’ll find that you use your outdoor space more, whether it’s a deck, terrace, garden or large backyard. 

So many materials work well both for indoors and out, including teak, stainless steel, rattan, wicker, easy-care fabrics, glass and more.  Focus on beauty, as well as function, for your outdoor living elements, so they don’t look like an afterthought, but rather a design style that’s coordinated with your interior decorating plan. 

Some design ideas to link your adjacent indoor and outdoor spaces include:

• Use similar colors, materials and styles inside and out. 

• Introduce a few soft surfaces outdoors, such as rugs, throw pillows and soft upholstery. 

• Hang soft, translucent window fashions that make the outdoors look closer. 

• Add matching accent pieces indoors and out, including table linens, lanterns, candles and flower arrangements. 

• Plan adequate sun covering outdoors, using umbrellas, awnings or a built shading structure, so you’re willing to keep the windows and window treatments open without sun damage to furniture and floors. 

• Use ceramic stools, durable tables and easy-clean dining chairs that you can move in and out as the need arises.

• Use Corradi Outdoor Screen Shades to keep the bugs off while enjoying the fresh air.

Bring your outdoor and indoor living spaces together for summer relaxation with family and friends.

Fresh Ideas For Your Home - Copper

A touch of copper will burnish your interior home space.

Copper is more than just a metal; it's a rich color for home design.

Usually when we think about a metallic finish to add to our homes, we consider gold, silver or bronze. Copper is a welcome change and provides a surprising, unique look. While silver is a cool metallic color, copper (like gold and bronze) is a warm color that provides richness and creates an inviting mood. 

Even within the color called copper, there are many variations. In general, copper is a cross between rich orange or gold and deep pink. Copper can range from a light honey pink tone to a dark ochre hue. Metallic copper can be finished in several ways – from bright and shiny looks to oxidized and rough surfaces. Copper is versatile too; it works well with the most modern of design styles in addition to complementing rustic looks and traditional design plans. 

Copper looks fabulous with almost any neutral. It’s especially effective paired with blues, greens, brilliant jewel tones and silver gray. And copper is not just a product made from metal; copper is also a color that can be used in upholstery fabric, window fashions, and bed and table linens. 

Think of these design elements to add in a copper tone:

• In the kitchen – stove, hood, countertops, faucets, backsplash, appliances, tiles 

• In the bathroom – faucets, backsplash tiles, bathtub, sinks

• In the dining room – chandeliers, flatware, wallcoverings

• In the living room – lamps, coffee table tops and end table tops, pots for indoor plants

• And in most any room – paint, upholstery fabrics, window fashions and accessories

Add the lushness of glowing copper to your decor this year. It will add unique style and create a warm mood.

Design Studio Roman Shades.... you have got to see the new fabrics!!!

Get creative with new custom soft Roman shades from The Hunter Douglas Design Studio Collecion. Choose from four distinctive styles, each designed and crafted with Hunter Douglas quality and innovation. Explore the New and Exclusive collection of artfully curated fabrics - sophisticated textures, patterns, stripes, rich solids and sheers. We have added many fabrics with updated colors and designs. Reflect your personal style by adding coordinating valances, tapes and trims, making your windows truly unique. Hunter Douglas Design Studio Roman Shades Redefined.

At Hunter Douglas, the difference is in the details. Design Studio fabrics are woven in widths that allow shades to be made up to 96" wide without being interrupted by seams. Every shade offers high quality construction. Our innovative cording system reduces access to the rear cords for enhanced child safety. Clear rings coordinate with all lining and sheers, stiff battens provide structure, bartender tunnels are sewn to keep battens from slipping out and all hems are double-turned for a custom finished look with bottom hems weighted for a smooth appearance.

 The Roman Shade Styles

Batten Front Roman Shades are characterized by battens or tunnels sewn at regular intervals on the front facing side of the shade. The clean, dimensional lines of this style work well in all environments. When a stripe or pattern fabric is selected, batten front is a great choice because the battens on the front won't interfere with the pattern.

Batten Back Roman Shades have inverted tunnels that create a soft, tailored look when lowered and defined folds when raised. This simple style requires the least amount of dressing when raising or lowering the shade... looking great in any position.

Flat Roman Shades have no horizontal seams or stitching across the face of the shade making them the best choice for showing off large-scaled patterns and striped fabrics. 

Hobbled is a classic style defined by soft fabric folds which cascade from top to bottom. Design Studio Hobbled Shades have a unique, triple-layered fabric construction with a double lining, providing unsurpassed energy efficiency.

Refine Your Style

Do you require privacy? Room darkening? Or would you like the light to gently filter into your room?The uniquely edited collection of Design Studio fabrics work for all your windows, whatever the need. You have a choice of lift system-Cord-lock, continuous Cord, Ultraglide lift system and PowerView only from Hunter Douglas.

We recently helped a customer in Plano. Her family room sliding Doors look out onto her pool patio and beyond to a wooded area. She wanted to be able to raise her shades to give her full view of the beautiful spot so we decided the best solution for this project was Design Studio Roman Shades by Hunter Douglas. For ease of operation we selected the PowerView Motorization. She used the Hub and set the shades so that they raise to a certain spot every morning and lower every evening. For an additional touch be added a custom cornice to cover all shades using a textured fabric. This was a solution both the customer and I love.

Let Read Design Southlake or Read Design Plano help you with you next custom window fashion project. Our Designers will be happy to come out to your home and give you ideas. If you are wanting just shades, shutters, blinds or are wanting to add Drapery Panels or Valances and Cornice boards, we will help you find the perfect solution.

We service these areas - Plano, Southlale, Dallas, Fort Worth and all areas in between!

Fresh Ideas For Your Home - Beachy

Creating a beach house feel will shore up your interior look.

The beach look is a casual, relaxing and fun addition to your home.

Have you always wanted a beach house even though you don’t live anywhere near a body of water? Or maybe you already live near the water and want to make your home look more like a beach house?

Either way you can create a relaxing, fun interior that looks like it belongs near the beach.

Beach design colors can be vibrant and tropical, calm and neutral, or nautical blue and white. Even aqua and white or orange and white can create a beach feel. Or you can use lots of beiges and light blues to reflect the colors of the sand and sky.

Pale-colored woods for floors, furniture or walls reinforce a light and casual theme. Furniture or storage units can be made from lobster traps or salvaged wood from boats or piers. Rattan, wicker or bamboo furniture also brings a beach vibe, as do rag rugs. Driftwood can be displayed as an art object or used as a table base.

Here are some specific decorating ideas to create a beach house feel:

• Purchase translucent window fashions to let in lots of light, and use artificial lighting that’s bright and warm.

• Add touches from the sea, such as coral and shells made into lamps, chandeliers, boxes and decorative items.

• Install boat fittings in your kitchen or bath, such as hinges, lanterns and pulls.

• Use fabrics, throws, pillows, table linens and bed linens with beach motifs, palm trees, surfers and boats.

• Add artwork that depicts the sea, birds, fish or surfers.

• You can even display a real boat in your house!! Or a model of a boat.

Sail into a new interior look with a beach theme. You'll feel like you live by the shore every day.

Beauty Is In The Layers

Layer The Look

It all begins with Hunter Douglas Silhouette Duolite Shades.

Our Favorite projects are those where we can put together a look designed specifically with you in mind. A look that cannot be repeated because it is unique to your style.

Recently we helped a client in North Dallas who had remodeled her ranch style home. More square footage was added to the master bedroom as well as three extra windows for more light. She wanted a whole new look which included furniture and decor. We decided on a soft contemporary design using neutral fabric colors for versatility and texture for an element of design. She needed privacy during the day and a room darkening option for nightfall without losing her light during the day. The second layer needed to be different and have the best solution to meet all of her design requirements is Silhouette Duolite Window Shading only from Hunter Douglas. The Duolite is a room darkening shade that falls behind the Silhouette making it darken the room and provide complete privacy. This unique product provided a solution to all of our clients window covering and design needs. With so many windows, the window coverings are a very important feature and focal point. There was no other option for this homeowner! And she loves the way they look and function. We decided to use Silhouette in the Alustra Collection Brio fabric for her bedroom because the beautiful textured fabric adds a unique element. She can leave the shades in the opened position during the day while still getting privacy, UV protection and allowing light to cascade into the room. 

For the final layer we added these soft contemporary sheers with a nice texture and modern pattern creating a sophisticated look. This is a soft linen sheer fabric from Kravet. The neutral colors accent the shades and wall paint while providing a softness. It's everything we wanted the finished look to be. It paired very well with the gray velvet chaise and neutral bedding. By mounting the drapery panels at the highest point and letting them flow to the floor, we draw your eyes up and make the room feel larger and maximize out space. It all aligned beautifully and we couldn't be happier! We plan on adding a touch of color using pillows, accessories and art. 

Another feature we added for easy operation and convenience is PowerView Motorization. This exclusive automation system makes raising and lowering your shades a breeze. These are intelligent shades that simplify your life. Particularly convenient in the master bedroom, you can set schedules to have your shades move to any desired position at any particular time of day. Have your shades rise with the sun to get an early start to your day and have them lower with the sunset to ensure privacy. Or simply shout out to Alexa to set your desired position. The PowerView system is so versatile it can be paired with most home automation system including Nest, IFTTT, Amazon Echo, Control 4, Logitech and more!

“The secret to a well-designed room is the selection of truly special products that beautifully weave light and texture together with ultimate functionality and performance.”

Silhouette by Hunter Douglas

Silhouette window shadings are designed to offer a surprising combination of light-diffusing textured sheers and light-controlling soft fabric vanes that enhance the ambiance of a room. In an understated ethereal way, they bring a textural quality that is naturally illuminating, quickly signifying style and subtle sophistication. Undeniable, natural light is one of the most precious elopement of any environment and of good design. These organic textured sheers magically transform light and offer an evolving art that elevates any room with a refined aesthetic. 

The Silhouette Duolite feature gives another layer to an already exclusive product. This feature allows a room darkening liner to lower for more privacy and a darker sleeping environment. Silhouette Duolite shadings seamlessly combine a Silhouette shading together with an independently operated room-darkening roller shade that nestles behind it in the same headrail. The addition of the roller shade enhances the room darkening and privacy benefits of Silhouette, while still allowing you to enjoy the softly diffused light and view through that Silhouette shadings are known for. Once the Silhouette shading is down with the vanes open, the room-darkening roller shade can be positioned in the window at any height to allow maximum flexibility when determining your light control and privacy needs. The shade can even be completely recessed into the headrail and out of sight.

Where To Find Hunter Douglas And Custom Drapery

Find it all here at your one stop shop for all your interior design needs! Read Design in Plano and Southlake have been creating beautiful designs for 30 years! Stop by either of our showrooms to learn how we can transform your home into a unique living space designed just for you. We can walk you through all of the beautiful window fashions Hunter Douglas offers and discuss features and benefits of each one. We will be showcasing our updated fabrics for each product line and introducing our brand new products beginning May 16th! We are very excited about this! 

Areas we service: Southlake, Plano, Dallas, Highland Park, Colleyville, Coppell, Celina, Fort Worth, Prosper, Gunter, Roanoke, Trophy Club, Allen, Frisco, Grapevine, Flower Mound, Robson Ranch, Keller, McKinney, Carrollton, Euless, Arlington, Rockwall, Richardson, Murphy, Lewisville, Anna, Denton, The Colony, Little Elm and every where in between!

Pirouette Shades - Refreshed & Refined

Home in Lakeside where the customer wanted a beautiful view to the backyard. 

 The perfect blend of flawless beauty and exceptional functionality.

Our innovative Pirouette® shadings feature soft horizontal fabric vanes attached to a single sheer backing, allowing for enhanced views to the outside while maintaining privacy and the full beauty of the fabric appearance on the inside. 

Light Control - Supervise The Sun

Soft vanes floating on a sheer backing put you in control of the amount of natural light that comes in, with dramatic effects. Transform harsh exterior light by diffusing it, spreading it evenly throughout your room, so you can maximize daylight hours and reduce your need for artificial light. Our beautiful sheer fabrics also softly filter out brightness, glare, and UV rays —protecting your furniture and flooring from fading.

Dramatic Softness

Invisi-Lift™ allows you to view through the sheer fabric and floating vanes with no obstructing cords or tapes, while maintaining a discreet level of privacy.

Sunscreen For Your Valuables

Protect your furniture, flooring and artwork from fading with at least 75% protection from harmful UV rays. The sheer backing allows you to keep your view while protecting your home.

Refreshed & Refined

New fabrics inspired by the organic beauty of raw silk and linen. A refreshed color palette, including 44 new hues spanning relaxing neutrals, sophisticated midtones and breathtaking pops of bold color. Check out the newly reimagined collection firsthand at Read Design in Plano and Southlake. 

Now through June 26th 2017 save with the Celebration of Light Sales Event going on now! For every 2 units purchased you will receive a $100 rebate in the form of a prepaid American Express gift card. 

Lift Systems

Pirouette comes with a variety of lifting systems including the highly sought PowerView Motorization. Manual lift systems include EasyRise and UltraGlide.   

Home in Castle Hills with view - Alustra Pirouette.

The Alustra Collection

The beauty of Alustra Pirouette Window Shadings extends well beyond the windows. Created for those  who know every detail in a room is a reflection of their personal style, they infuse an aesthetic that adds impressive dimension and instills sumptuous ambiance. This captivating design merges unprecedented light control with luxurious textiles embodied with texture and sheen. With superior functionality, it beautifully complements the unique inspirations and stories that express the spirit and soul of a home. 

Discover The New Shape Of Light

Introducing Sonnette

The joy of Great Design. At Hunter Douglas, we believe your window fashions should bring you the greatest possible enjoyment, adding beauty and style to your home. That is why we're passionately driven to design our products with a refined sense of style and industry-leading innovation. So when you choose the Hunter Douglas brand, you can be sure that high quality, beautiful window fashions decorate your home for many years to come. Everything is designed to be seen, touched, experienced and loved.  

An update on classic honeycomb shades, Sonnette Cellular Roller Shades gently diffuse light through an innovative curved shape; providing ambiance and character while dispersing light to all angles of the room. 

Experience the new shape of light. 

Purposefully engineered, our curved cellular construction provides and energy efficient layer to your home. Insulation in the winter and cooling in the summer. After decades of industry experience, we've taken the best features in window fashions to create a versatile easy to use, contemporary window treatment - perfect for any room in the modern home.  

Benefits

1. Innovative light diffusing shape
2. Energy efficient cellular construction
3. Modern cordless operation
4. Hunter Douglas trusted performance and quality

Light Control

Select between two opacities.

1. Semi-opaque diffuses light for a soft glow and moderate privacy from the outside in.
2. Room darkening blocks the majority of incoming light and provides additional in home privacy. 

Operating Systems

1. LiteRise - raise to lower your shades by lifting up or pulling down on the bottom rail.
2. Soft Touch Motorizations - gently pull down on the wand to activate your shade to lower it and a slight push up on the wand will send your shade into the full raised position. This motorized system has a favorite position functionality and it battery powered.  *Not compatible with PowerView or App.
3. Poweriew Motorizations - create personalized shade settings called Scenes, then set those scenes to schedules for the ultimate convenience of automated operation. Operate your shades from home or while you're away via the RemoteConnect feature. Battery powered and plug in options are available. Easily intergrate PowerView with connected devices and third party automation systems (Amazon Echo, IFTTT, Nest and more) for the whole home experience.

See and experience Sonnette Shades during our early launch only at Read Design Plano and Read Design Southlake.  You can feel, operate shade samples and look at fabrics for this new and innovative shade. Our designers will show you all of the options. It is clear that we are very excited about this new product! Stop in today and let us know what you think!

See Sonnette Shades at Read Design Plano and Read Design Southlake. 

We travel to all of the following areas and more: Fort Worth, Rowlett, Dallas, Prosper, Celina, Frisco, Colleyville, Coppell, Robson Ranch, Plano, Southlake, Irving, Grapevine, Flower Mound, Denton, Highland Park, Lakewood, Allen, McKinney and everywhere in between!

March Into Spring......

          With window coverings by Hunter Douglas and Custom Draperies by Read Design

We can see the start of warm weather ahead of us and it is time to freshen up your home just in time for Spring. What better way then changing out your window coverings or adding Custom Window Treatments?! I love to open the windows at the beginning of Spring and see Nature in it's glory and to smell the freshness of Spring.

A great way to open up your home is to update your window coverings.

Silhouette, Pirouette, and Roman Shades

When customers ask us what we would do to open up a room, we always suggest shades. These include Silhouettes, Pirouettes, Roman Shades and Roller Shades all from Hunter Douglas. These are products where you can easily lift them all the way up and let the sun shine in.  

Silhouette transforms light. Like the subtle cast their name suggests, Silhouette window shadings with the Signature S-Vane, creates beautiful and ambient light and shadow. Soft fabric vanes are suspended between two sheers, diffusing softened light deep into a room. Tilt the vanes to achieve the privacy you desire while maintaining UV protection. These shades can easily be rolled all the way into a cassette to give full view of the outside.

Stringing design, dramatically filtered light. With Pirouette window shadings, the look and feel of a traditional fabric shade is enhanced, the gentle pull of a cord lets you change a room's lighting in a whole new way. Soft, horizontal fabric vanes close to filter natural light, or open to give you a perfect outside view. Our revolutionary invisi-Lift system allows the vanes to float gracefully. Even when opened they offer UV protection and reduced glare through the sheer backing.

Vignette and Design Studio Roman Shades offer a simple, uncluttered, look. Luxurious fabrics and soft folds give the shades a clean, crisp look. The range of styles can help you create a warm, inviting, and beautiful space. With so many fabric color and texture options, there is something for any style of home.

Sophisticated but uncomplicated is how we describe Roller Shades. For a look that is both custom and classic, our Designer Roller Shades offer a clean appearance in a beautiful range of fabrics and have a variety of design options and operating systems.  

There other Shades from Hunter Douglas that also fit this bill including Duette Honeycomb Shades, Provenance Woven Shades, and Solera Soft Shade. All of these designs are beautiful and dynamic. 

Stop in to see us at Read Design in Southlake or Plano and let one of our designers help you select the perfect shade for your home. Because we are a full service Interior Design Studio, we can help you with Custom Window Treatments. We can even pair them to Hunter Douglas Shades. With the thousands of fabrics available, we are sure that we can find the perfect fit for your home.  Here are just a few ideas.

Don't Forget! March is Motorization Month! Ask us about PowerView!

We service all of the following areas: Garland, Richardson, Farmer's Branch, Dallas, Rockwall, Fortworth, Plano, Frisco, Southlake, Westlake, Trophy Club, Roanoke, Denton, Celina, Prosper, Allen, McKinney and every where in between!