Now, we're not decorators by any means. My idea of decorating a comfortable room is tossing my orange bean bag chair in the center of the living room. Even though my wife isn't much better at home décor than I, she knew the casually comfortable look she was seeking did not include a bean bag.

Knowing we were both lacking the interior design gene, we contacted a friend who could do this in her sleep. She could shop garage sales and put together a look worthy of House Beautiful. Since decorating is a hobby for her, she eagerly accepted our invitation to help us get our home up to a livable standard.

We wanted to decorate our new space in keeping with the character of the home. We also wanted to add our own little flair to it. We wanted to go out on a limb, but not too far.

When we walked through our home with our decorator friend, she suggested Roman blinds for the dining room. This type of window covering, also called Roman shades, is a great choice for any room for a multitude of reasons.

They really add a touch of class to any room. The shades can be custom made to match tablecloths, bedding, pillows and anything else in rooms they're featured in. In this case, we could match them to our tablecloth, and they would look great with our antique dining room set.

They work with non-standard sized windows. In this old house, the windows weren't a typical size for which you'd find off-the-shelf blinds or shutters. We'd need to have all of our window treatments custom-made.

They don't interfere with the architecture of the window. When we stripped layers and layers of paint from the wood in the house, we discovered that the house has gorgeous oak floors and trim. It hadn't been treated in the past, but it was still in great shape. We wanted to be sure any window covering we chose would accentuate it, not hide it.

Aside from all of these great benefits, we learned that our friend could make the shades and save us money, which is so important when undertaking a remodeling project.

To me, there was no reason not go to with this type of window covering. The fact that we'd get beautiful custom shades at a fraction of the cost was all we needed to know.