This “coastal farmhouse” in Hermosa Beach got woven wood roman shades, motorized roller shades, and elegant draperies to help round out an exceptional owner-led design and build.

To call this build a “coastal farmhouse” would be doing it an injustice due to the uniqueness of the design and the attention to detail mixed with its originality. The house sits about 2 blocks from the beach in Hermosa Beach, and as Matt, the husband explained to me, in order to accomplish the design and build they took the whole house down to the foundation, leaving the minimum amount of original structure to build their new vision around. As he also explained, the city-imposed limitations on new construction square footage (a good thing in coastal California in my opinion) had them viewing themselves as boat-builders, utilizing every square foot to it’s maximum potential. Mission accomplished. A number of months after the house was live-in ready, I got the opportunity to outfit it with proper window treatments, something they had been living without up to that point.

Motorized roller shades with a soft, light filtering linen-like fabric and sleek brushed gold hardware.

For the window treatments, which would finally help them live comfortably in their own space, we wanted to do a few things:

a) maximize function without compromising style

b) provide the necessary balance of light and privacy needs for their many windows, especially those facing the street and neighboring homes (for those that live sand-adjacent in Southern California, you’ll well know that proximity to your neighbors is a real thing).

c) maximize convenience with the use of motorized shades (in this case just the roller shades were motorized), especially for large shades in common areas and those in hard to reach places, like their statement of a stairwell and the high windows in the kids’ bedrooms

d) compliment the stylish finishes and natural textures already present throughout the house

This large stairwell required a special solution. The home owner had smartly run low-voltage wiring during construction, so we were able to come in with the right mix of product and hardware to install a motorized roller shade that will never need to be charged.

The window treatment mix

Motorized roller shades

As mentioned above, the large windows throughout the house primarily featured motorized roller shades. In the common areas we went with a linen-like light filtering roller shade cloth material which created a softness and sort of glowing light when hit with sunlight - almost like studio lighting. The cloth itself has a linen-like weave that adds a very nice, yet subtle visual interest, different than a standard screen material, yet provides plenty of solar protection. For hardware on these shades we went with a minimal yet design-forward brushed gold bracket that perfectly accented other pops of brass throughout the home and complimented other traditional black hardware.

There were a few places that we used more traditional, blackout roller shades, for example tucked above a steel framed French picture window that separates the living space and a bonus room that normally houses musical instruments and games for the kids, but transforms into a guest quarters when needed. This enabled them keep that window as a standout feature, but also make the room fully functional for guest privacy on occasion. Other places we used blackout rollers were on high windows in the kids’ rooms, helping to darken the room for peaceful sleep.

Smartly, even though the owners knew window treatments were well off into the future of their project, they ran low voltage wiring to inconvenient and hard to reach windows, allowing us to select the appropriate hardware and controls so these motorized roller shades will never need to be recharged.

All the motorized shades were run off of Somfy motors, utilizing a single remote to control all the downstairs shades, and a second remote to control the blackout shades upstairs in the kids’ rooms.

Motorized light filtering roller shades with decorative hardware

Woven wood roman shades

Most of the mid-size windows in this home were fitted with manual woven wood roman shades. In certain cases, the roman shades were as much an accent as they were functional, for example on smaller windows higher up in the living space. Though in other areas, for example the home office and bathroom, top-down-bottom-up, privacy lined roman shades put as much emphasis on functionality as they did aesthetic. The large, accessible windows in the kids’ bedrooms were also fitted with woven wood roman shades, although blackout lined for both darkness and privacy. Across the home, the full gamut of woven wood roman shades were installed, including unlined for view-through, privacy lined for light and privacy, top-down-bottom-up, and blackout lined.

Custom draperies and French return hardware

Two sliding glass doors each got linen draperies in a creamy off-white with custom, handmade drapery hardware. The softness (both color and texture) of the linen draperies perfectly accented elements like cozy rugs and natural wood textures while the black wrought iron look of the slender French return rods and metal rings provided a nice traditional compliment to the softer features throughout the home. It also matched other black finishes throughout, like traditional door hardware and the stairwell handrail.

The softness of this blackout lined linen drapery with custom iron hardware perfectly complimented other materials in this bedroom, from the wall fan to the blackout lined roman shade to the headboard.

A rich velvet portiere

Perhaps our favorite piece of this whole project was a rich, dark green velvet portiere with a one-way draw that neatly stacked to one side of a doorway leading into the previously discussed bonus room / guest quarters. This is the epitome of form meeting function as the velvet was blackout lined, providing would-be guests with full privacy and darkness when fully drawn, yet in normal living and day to day use, creates a beautiful accent to an otherwise exceptionally balanced open-concept downstairs living space.

While our projects are a bit like children, we love them all equally in their own special ways, this one was truly a fun one where we got to collaborate with great homeowners, flex some design muscle, source unique materials, develop and implement solutions for the clients’ needs, and ultimately deliver upon their vision.