Valances for Sliding Glass Doors

I find that most of my clients are so focused on choosing the perfect fabric and trim, that they usually don't pay much attention to the scale of the application.

Scale refers to the relationship in proportion between objects...for example; a very short woman dancing with a very tall man is obviously out of scale. Somehow though when it comes to putting a room together, the notion of scale never gets looked at.

To my trained eye and in my opinion, a valance alone on a sliding glass door looks incomplete. A slider is a 6-foot or wider door that is about 80 inches high...it's a great big, giant piece of glass.The valance on top of a sliding glass door appears to "float" because it is above nothing other than glass...it is a design not grounded or connected to any other architectural element...and also the scale of a valance is often not grand enough to be a companion to the slider.

If a valance alone is desired, I suggest that you go for assymetry. That is, the operational side of the slider should not have any fabric hanging down below the top edge. The effect of opening and closing a slider creates a mini-vacuum which often draws any hanging drapery out the slider. Then guess what? Someone is going to close the slider on your valance! I like the idea of a tail or jabot on the stationary side of the slider. This really gives a great proportion to the window and looks far more complete than a straight valance ever could.

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