Until recently, I didn’t pay much attention roller blind fabric to window treatments. My dad, who builds houses, doesn’t care for them, so we always had bare windows growing up. When I set out on my own, moving from apartment to apartment, I adopted whatever shades or blinds came with the place. It felt silly to invest in a rental. It wasn’t until I found my current apartment that I was finally forced to pause. Plastic vertical blinds? Seriously?They were hideous, dated and out of place.

They jangled with every breeze, offered next to no privacy and made my home feel like a seedy motel. Even worse, they were cut to four inches below the windowsill, leaving drag marks on the wall. They haunted me.After two months, my boyfriend and I caved and hired a local company to replace them with neutral roller shades that silently disappeared into discreet valances and cast a golden glow on our plants when the sun set. The total investment, $600 for three large windows, was well worth it. A few weeks later, our neighbors hired a handyman on TaskRabbit to switch out their blinds, too.

We wondered why changing them hadn’t occurred to us earlier.It’s sad to say, but window treatments are an afterthought,” says Kim Kiner, vice president of textiles and material design for Hunter Douglas. “They’re the last thing people think about because they’re not considered a necessity. Appliances are necessities. Window treatments are seen as dressing.” The story changes when people are faced with a pressing need, such as nosy neighbors or irritating sunbeams, she said. “You don’t think about them until you have to think about them.

There are two paths to revamping your windows: ordering custom treatments or shopping retail. Designers recommend the former because it cuts down on the risk of error, but you can go the DIY route if you’re on a budget. Retailers such as Lowe’s, Home Depot and J.C. Penney offer free in-home consultations and measurement assistance, and companies that specialize in window coverings, such as Next Day Blinds, 3 Day Blinds and Decorview, offer design guidance and repairs, too. Tim Hamilton, director of merchandising for Lowe’s, said 75 percent of windows are dressed in stock treatments. “I think you’d be pleasantly surprised at what you can get at value-driven retailers.”