What is the style of the home? I have MCM and like having just up/down shades and no other window coverings, but a Victorian may look funny without curtains and a country farmhouse may look best with shutters.

As posted, it really depends on the style of your home.

However, based on your description of "elegant" most people would have fabric window treatments - i.e. drapes.

A Victorian home would have shutters for privacy plus drapes for the actual decor.

If you need privacy and/or protection from the sun, many people have a combination of innocuous blinds of some kind AND elegant fabric window treatments - e.g. drapes. That is what I have in my home as I need the shades down in the morning because of extreme eastern sun and the drapes give it a . more finished "elegant' look all the time as they complement the furniture and frame the windows.

Pictures?

Traditional uniform look would be white sheers on all the front facing windows with drapes over those or drapes with a uniform white lining facing out. My mother took this to the extreme with the front facing windows of the garage covered with white pinch plated sheers which were taken down at least once a year and washed.

@palimpsest Now that is a blast from my visual blast as my mother had sheers which had some sort of embroidered detail on them. She did crewel so she had embroidered valences for the formal living room and my parents' bedroom.

That look exemplified what used to be called Lace Curtain Irish - although we weren't Irish it really was the aspirational look for middle and working class people in the Brookyn of my youth which was pre-gentrification. My street wasn't particularly urban as it was single family homes with tall trees on either side of the one way street.

Well my mother's heritage was 100% Irish and Lace Curtain Irish at that in both the general and pejorative meanings. Even when we lived in a rented house every window had a plain white shade and white sheers over it. Presenting a good face to the street was imperative. My grandmother was so proper that she practically felt it would be an invasion of your privacy and gossip to tell someone else you had died.

@palimpsest - I don't think Lace Curtain Irish had any pejorative meaning. It was as the anthesis of Shanty Town Irish which definitely was used pejoratively but Lace Curtain meant you had escaped and were refined.

Not to digress too far but often people only recently escaping from abject poverty are more careful about social niceties which is why I think the term differentiated it.

However, many very poor women of that time were also very "house proud" and within the limitations of their income also attempted to make their homes as nice as can be. Even the working class people living in the old law tenements of NYC would often try to furnish the "front" room of the railroad flat with the nicest things they could in imitation of a higher class family that always had a parlour reserved for special guests.

A Tree Grows In Brooklyn does a really excellent job of illustrating how the impoverished families lived in turn of the century NYC.

FWIW - "tenement" is an actual description in NY zoning laws - there are old law tenements built after the Tenement Act of 1879 which essentially created the apartments built around an air shaft and new law tenements which result in the very typical pre WW II buildings that have a courtyard in the center so that all the rooms have "real" windows

This is completely off topic, but a discussion that is near and dear to my heart. I am highly active in several inclusion and diversity workgroups and am often frustrated that the things that really need our attention are diminished by issues that are no longer relevant or impact so few people that they should not be considered a priority. Lace Curtain Irish or Shanty Irish? Both were pejorative - Irish Catholic's were not welcomed into the US with open arms, but for the most part they are not discriminated against today.

On the other hand, women won't reach parity with men in this country for another 208 years.

Ageism is a huge problem in corporate America, and older people are considered a "Protected" class, but only 8% of Fortune 500 companies include an age category in their diversity programs.

Women over 55 were impacted more than any other demographic group when Covid related unemployment was measured.

I see that things like "Tallism" and "French American Heritage" and "Alzheimer's in the workplace" being included in diversity discussions sometimes more often than Race, Gender and Age issues.

Are we becoming too sensitive and overly interested in bias against everything instead of focusing on the bigger, more prominent issues?

You're right. This is totally off the topic. Sorry but I don't use this platform for ideology. Thanks

Where I grew up there was a largish midcentury rambler that was essentially monochromatic in way that current houses are not: pale yellow brick, stone, siding and trim, all in tones that essentially matched, and very low contrast. Instead of white lining on the drapery, or white sheers, the sheers were blue and the drapes were backed with blue. And at Christmas, the lights were blue. Apparently the entire interior was not accented in blue though, some of the window treatments didn't show blue on the inside at all, the entire scheme was to add an accent color to the exterior of the house. It was unusual, and probably pretty expensive to execute, but in a way it prevented the outside of the house from looking as bland as it could have with all white window treatments. The house was not really amenable to adding color in the way lots of people do with shutters and things, because it had very large picture windows for the most part.

IMO plantation shutters belong on plantation homes and for sure not on MCM ones . I have a 1956 MCM house and I use solar shades to control heat and UV rays I do not think up/ down blinds are the answer for window covering in that style of house . I have drapes verty full in a taffetta that has an elegant look I actully never close them but they all can close and still look nice and full. I think really full sheers are a great look and I guess I need to see the exterior of the house to comment on other windows and their coverings. Sorry there is nothing elegant about shutters I aslo think both spaces need the same window treatment .

Lined linen or silk drapery can’t be beat for elegance.