Window treatments in Carrollton, GA

Carrollton keeps more of its old houses than most towns its size. The South Carrollton historic district runs from the 1870s to the 1930s, with Victorian Gothic and Queen Anne houses on Dixie and Bradley Streets, then Neoclassical homes and Craftsman bungalows. High ceilings and bay windows come with that territory. A bay is measured window by window, because no two sides are quite the same, and a tall double-hung wants a shutter or a shade built to its full height rather than cut down from a stock size.

Mandeville Mill Village tells the other half of the story: around 150 one-story mill houses from 1900 and 1908, shotguns, pyramid cottages and bungalows on Burson Avenue, Aycock Street and the lettered avenues. Rooms that size are better served by a light faux wood blind or a cellular shade than by anything heavy. The old Mandeville and Lawler mills are lofts now, with the factory-sized windows that come with them.

Then there is the newer Carrollton. Oak Mountain grew up around its golf course from the late 1980s, new houses are still going up between the older ones in Sunset Hills, and subdivisions like Whooping Creek Estates are brand new. In a new house the windows often arrive bare or with whatever the builder chose, and that is the moment to choose properly, before every room is arranged around something temporary.