Window Treatments for French Doors

French doors are terrific at letting light into your log home and allowing you to gaze out at your views.  Of course one negative side effect of french doors is that everybody else will have a view into your home.  So, depending on the privacy of your log home, you may want to consider adding a functional window treatment to your french doors to provide privacy and light control.

Putting up treatments on a moving door can be tricky.  You don’t want to impede the opening and closing of the door, and ideally the window treatment will allow for views when you want it, and also provide privacy when desired.  A true french door is any door that consists of glass in the center that hinges open. Many times, there are two doors which open to provide a double wide entry, but that is not always the case.  We’ll talk a bit about window treatments for true french doors first, and then we’ll discuss window treatments for sliding glass doors.

Window Treatments for French Doors
(True French Doors)

One of the most simple treatments for a french door is a sliding curtain, be it tab top, grommet top or otherwise, which can be drawn across the doors (shown in the log home dining room photo above).  Shutting these treatments is fast and easy, but it does hinder the ability to go in and out of the doors.  So, if you have a high traffic french door that you’d like to enter and exit with or without the curtains drawn, avoid this treatment.

One alternative window treatment for french doors is the use of roman shades on each individual door (like the log home great room shown above).  With the roman shades all the way up, the view is completely unobstructed.  However, should the log homeowner want some privacy or light control, the roman shades can be lowered completely and they will still not interfere with the opening and closing of any of the doors.

This sumptuous log home bedroom (shown above) has an alternative to the cloth roman shades.  This french door has a traditional venetian blind on it.  It provides much the same function as the roman shade in that it will provide privacy and light control without getting in the way of opening or closing the french door.  On the plus side, slats made of wood or vinyl are easier to dust which is great for allergy sufferers.  On the negative side, depending on the blinds, quickly opening and closing the french door could be noisy, especially with metal slats.

Window Treatments for Sliding Glass Doors
(Not French Doors)

A sliding door is never a french door, despite how similar they can look when closed.  Sliding glass doors do however often serve the same function as french doors, and they require similar considerations when choosing an appropriate window treatment.  So, we will also take a look at some options for window treatments for sliding glass doors.

The sliding glass door in this log home great room (shown above) has a very similar look to the french doors.  And it also has a similar window treatment with venetian blinds over each pane of glass.  (Some sliding glass doors are actually available with the blinds in between two sheets of glass, so they never get dusty or damaged.)  With the countless varieties of positions and angles, the venetian blinds offer a great degree of flexibility in choosing just the right amount of light and privacy.

This log home dining room (shown above) has a wonderful double glass sliding door that opens onto a beautiful patio.  Here roman shades are used again, but this time not on the individual panes of glass, but instead running the whole width of the doors and the sidelights.  Since the doors slide in their tracks, the roman shades have a low risk of getting stuck or interfering with the movement of the doors.

Finally, this log home bedroom (shown above) has a sliding glass door leading to the deck beyond.  The homeowners here chose a grommeted curtain and hung it from a curtain rod running the full length of the sliding door and window.  Unlike with the hinged french door we showed earlier, this curtain is not as likely to get stuck when the door opens and closes.  Therefore, a window treatment such as this works quite well, especially in a bedroom where one wants to quickly convert a window treatment to provide privacy without having too many cords to pull.

We hope you’ve gotten some ides from this posting.  Whether you have true french doors, or you have sliding glass doors, you will no doubt realize the benefit of having extra light and views.  But you’ll also be aware of the desire to provide privacy and block light when necessary.