Chantilly, Virginia · 20151 · 20152
Chantilly Window Treatments, for the Great ’80s Colonial Update
Brookfield, Greenbriar, and Poplar Tree are quietly renovating the 1985 out of their interiors — and nothing updates a colonial faster than the windows. Verticals and valances out; shutters, textures, and quiet motors in.
- Free In-Home Consultation
- Specialty Arch Shapes
- Installed by Our Own Team
The 1985 Colonial, Room by Room
Chantilly's subdivisions were built proud in the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s — center-hall colonials with two-story foyers, palladian arches, garden-window kitchens, and the era's full window wardrobe: vinyl verticals, scalloped valances, and brass everything. Those interiors are being renovated street by street now, and the windows are where the update shows first. Here's what the makeover looks like, room by room.
| The Room | The 1985 Version | The Update |
|---|---|---|
| Two-story foyer | Bare palladian arch, curtains on a rod nobody could reach. | Treat the lower glass, honor the arch — or a specialty-shape shade with motorized control when the western sun demands it. |
| Family room | Vertical blinds in almond vinyl, one slat always sideways. | Modern fabric verticals or gliding panels on the slider; sheer shadings where the room went open-plan. |
| Kitchen & garden window | A scalloped valance and a mini-blind fighting the sink splash. | Moisture-proof faux wood or café-height composite shutters — wipeable, warp-proof, done. |
| Primary suite | Matching floral balloon shades (you remember). | Tailored Romans or honeycombs with blackout liners — darkness the ’80s never delivered. |
| The whole-house look | Every room its own decade. | One coherent palette across floors — the single change that makes a 1985 colonial read renovated. |
Where the Update Shows Most
Shutters: The Update That Reads Renovation
Nothing announces "this colonial has been done" like plantation shutters — millwork-grade, permanent, and the one treatment that conveys with the house when Chantilly's brisk resale market comes calling.
Explore Shutters →
The Foyer Finally Gets Handled
The two-story foyer window was always beautiful and never practical — motorization ends the standoff: shades that ride a schedule, an arch treated as the specialty shape it is, and no ladder in the stairwell ever again.
Explore Motorized →
Texture In, Valances Out
The warmth the ’80s tried to fake with fabric swags, woven woods deliver for real — bamboo and grasses that make a colonial family room feel current without a single trend risk.
Explore Woven →One Visit, Every Room Quoted
Tell us which rooms are shedding their 1985 and we'll call to set the visit — samples against your trim, every opening measured, and an exact quote with promotions applied before we leave.
Prefer to talk it through?
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Homeowners across Northern Virginia, DC, and Maryland rate Nation's Blinds 4.9 stars on Google and 5.0 on Angi and Facebook — for honest guidance, precise measuring, and installations done right the first time.
Brookfield, Greenbriar & Poplar Tree
The update wave moves subdivision by subdivision. Greenbriar and Brookfield — the ’70s originals — are deepest into full renovations, where treatments land as the finishing trade. Poplar Tree Estates and the ’80s–’90s streets off Stringfellow carry the palladian-and-foyer brief this page keeps circling. The townhome pockets near Route 28 borrow the whole playbook next door in Centreville. And Chantilly's other identity — the office parks and contractor campuses of the Dulles corridor — is a commercial conversation we're already having up and down 28.
Before the visit: ten seconds with the AI visualizer shows the update on your actual window, and 18-month 0% financing lets the whole colonial modernize at once instead of room by room by decade.
Chantilly Wants to Know
Should we cover the palladian arch or leave it bare?
Often, leave it — the arch is the foyer's architecture, and treating the rectangular glass below usually solves the practical problems while the half-moon keeps doing its job. When west sun or a bedroom sightline makes coverage necessary, specialty-shape shades are built to the curve. We'll tell you honestly which case yours is.
Do updated window treatments actually help at resale?
They're one of the few improvements buyers see from the doorway of every room — and shutters in particular convey with the house and photograph like millwork. We won't invent you a percentage, but agents in these subdivisions ask us for install dates for their listing remarks, which tells you something.
What replaces 1988's vertical blinds?
Depends on the opening: sliders want modern fabric verticals (the category grew up) or gliding panels; picture windows that wore verticals out of habit usually deserve sheer shadings instead. Either way the almond vinyl retires with honors.
We're under the Dulles flight path — do treatments help with noise?
Modestly and honestly: honeycomb shades soften interior acoustics and take an edge off, but windows and seals do the heavy lifting on aircraft noise. We'll never sell a shade as soundproofing — we will point out that the insulation and light control you get are worth it on their own.
Bring the Colonial Into This Decade — Up to 40% Off
Free in-home consultation anywhere in Chantilly — foyer to family room, samples against your trim, exact quote before we leave.