Bedroom Curtains in Goa

A blackout lining is a dense, coated layer sewn behind the curtain. It makes the room genuinely dark, which suits shift workers, light sleepers, children who nap and anyone in an east-facing room. A dim-out lining lets a faint glow through — the room is dark enough to sleep, but you are not waking in a cave.

A plain cotton lining does neither job fully; it adds body and privacy and protects the face fabric. In a west-facing bedroom that you only use at night, that may be all you need. Hold samples against the actual window in the morning before deciding — light behaves differently in every room.

Most complaints about blackout curtains are really about gaps. Light comes in over a rod fixed just above the frame, down the sides where the curtain stops level with the window, and through the centre where two panels meet.

The fixes are simple when planned at the start: mount the track on the ceiling or high on the wall, extend it 15 to 20 centimetres past each side of the window, let the curtain reach just above the floor, and use an overlap arm in the middle so the two leaves cross instead of meeting edge to edge. Our track planner shows how much extra width the stack needs.

Bedrooms suit quieter colours than living rooms: sand, stone, soft grey-green, muted indigo. Dark colours absorb heat when the sun is on them, so on a window that takes direct afternoon sun, a lighter face fabric with a blackout lining behind it is cooler than a dark curtain on its own.

Texture does a lot in a bedroom. A slubbed linen or a cotton-linen blend looks relaxed and hides creases; a smooth polyester blend is easier to wash and holds its shape. Velvet looks rich but is heavy for a bedroom window that stays shut through the monsoon.

In many Goan bedrooms the bed ends up against the window wall. A full-length curtain then gets caught behind the headboard. A roman blind or a blackout roller fitted inside the recess often works better here, or a curtain that stops at the sill on a short track, so the bed can sit close without crushing fabric.