I feel your pain, alipetecampbell! I was asking the same question last year when facing this dilemma. There seems to be a lot of options available overseas but not in Australia. In the end I went with Lite-rise (meaning you had to manually raise/lower the blind!) Luxaflex Duette Shades with the smaller 10mm honeycomb cells. The problem with the french doors is that there is not a big enough lip where the glass is set into the aluminum frame. So the blind has to be mounted onto the frame rather than within the frame. While it is not an issue when the door is open, you have to be careful not to push the door too far back against the wall, otherwise the protruding head rail will hit the wall on the inner end. I like the translucent duette shades I went with & they do the job but they are not the perfect window treatment I was looking for. New products are coming onto the market all the time so I hope you are able to source something that really appeals to you.

Hi cprestonthomas if you want to maintain privacy with daytime light control, replacing the clear glass with white translucent glass is a great idea! Then for night time privacy a simple chain operated blockout roller blind on the reverse roll is the way to go. Is that another window beside your sliding doors? If so I don't think you have enough stack back for curtains. This means the curtain fabric would cover part of the glass on the sliding doors which would be extremely annoying for loss of light as well as ease of access. If the extension is quite modern, blockout roller blinds on both the sliding doors and window would work well here too. There are some fabulous roller blind fabrics these days in some great neutrals, colours and patterns.

I love the feature wall colour ! It lifts the whole room ,and modernises it so much . It makes the nice but boring couches look exciting , but it makes the curtains look even worse ! In the lounge , I'd do sheers basically inside the window frame , with big heavy curtains 'over' them , only opening about halfway back at the top , and tied about 1/3rd of the way up . Colour ? The richest shiniest gold I could get . With the feature wall , the couches , the black and gold picture -- class ! Doing the master and the dining room in the gold may be overkill , but it would certainly add a luxe feel . Depending on how open plan your house is , the dining already has a brass or gold plaque , and therefore any other colour may not work ? The brown feature wall in the master limits curtain colours , but maybe gold and cream stripes ( say 10-12mm wide ) would tie the master in ,but be light enough to not be overbearing .

Blinds are great where you have furniture up against windows. I would go white daylight and charcoal or navy for night. I would also consider curtains across the door. Otherwise split the blind into two for easier access to the door. If you go curtain there you could still have a daylight blind on each side if needed. What is your ceiling height for light fitting!