Window Treatments and Fabrics: Why Touching the Samples Matters

You can pick a paint color from a screen and be roughly right. You can't pick a fabric that way. Weight, texture, how a cloth drapes, how it handles light and how it wears are all things your hands and eyes need to check in person. That's why the M.B. Designs showroom in downtown Yakima keeps sample catalogs and fabric displays within reach, and why a trip to look at window treatments and upholstery fabrics is usually worth the drive.

A story about six chairs

A Google review from a client named Kim captures how this goes when it works. She stopped into the design center needing fabric for six chairs. She was pointed straight to a specialist, the studio's fabric and upholstery expert Donna, who pulled out sample catalogs and showed her the durability of each fabric. After only two visits they found the right one. The studio then connected Kim with an upholsterer, and when she went to pick up the finished chairs, she wrote that they looked like a piece of art.

A few things in that story are worth copying. She started with a person who knew fabric. She was shown how each one would wear, not just how it looked. And the whole path, from choosing the cloth to finding the upholsterer, ran through one place.

Touch it, then test it

When you handle a swatch, pay attention to more than color. How heavy is it? Does it feel rough or soft against your forearm, not just your fingertips? Does it hold a crease or spring back? Fold it, crumple it, and rub it. A fabric for a rarely used accent chair can lean toward delicate. A fabric for the family room sofa, or the chairs where a dog naps, needs to handle real life. Ask the designer about the durability of each option, as Kim did, and be honest about who and what will be sitting on it.

Look at it in your own light

Showroom lighting is flattering, and your living room is not a showroom. Whenever possible, take large samples home and look at them at different times of day, against your walls, floors and furniture. A fabric that glows under bright store lights can turn flat in a north-facing room. Yakima's sunny windows bring another factor. Strong afternoon light can fade some fabrics over time and makes you think harder about what kind of window treatment you need on that side of the house.

Window treatments: light, privacy and view

Window treatments do three jobs at once: control light, protect privacy and shape the look of the room. Start by deciding what each window needs. A bedroom may want a treatment that blocks most light. A kitchen window over the sink may want a way to filter the sun without hiding the view. A living room with a good view might need something that disappears when it's open. Different styles solve these problems differently, so it helps to know your priority before you start comparing options.

Pattern scale, color and how the treatment stacks when open all change the feel of a room. A pattern that looks modest on a small swatch can overwhelm a wide window. Ask to see a larger piece of the fabric hung or draped, not just a sample card, so you can judge it at full size.

Think about the whole room

Fabric choices work best when they're made together: curtains, upholstery, pillows, area rugs and wall coverings all share the room. The showroom carries window treatments, area rugs, wall coverings, furniture and accessories alongside the flooring and countertops, so you can set a fabric next to a rug and a tile in one visit. That's a big advantage over buying each piece from a different place and hoping they'll get along at home.

Linda Sparling, another client, wrote that Melissa and her team think about the things you might overlook. Fabric is a good place for that. A designer will ask how the room is lit, how it's used, where the pets sleep and what else is going into the space, and those answers narrow a wall of fabric down to a handful of real options. That's the real value of working in person: you spend your time comparing three good candidates instead of scrolling through three hundred.

For window treatments in one room or fabric for a favorite chair, start by touching the samples. Call M.B. Designs at 509-823-4600 to schedule a studio appointment in Yakima, available Monday through Thursday, and bring a photo of the room, a swatch of your paint and a sense of how the space gets used.