Soft furnishing in the form of blinds for your home provides a lovely aesthetic. They soften the light in the room, creating a gentle ambience.
Setting the right tone in your home can make a significant difference on many levels, and can greatly enhance your health and well-being.
By taking some simple steps, you will transform your home, but you may change your families’ lives.
Let’s dive in and learn about blinds, keeping things easy and simple, creating a little light!
A Guide to Blinds
You can adorn your home with many different types of blinds to add style and a little chic. Who doesn’t want to add some extra sparkle to that tired old box room?
However, with so many options available, making the right choice can feel overwhelming. That’s why understanding how to choose window blinds is often an important first step. Once you’ve narrowed down the right style, colour, and finish, you’ll be well on your way to creating a room that looks truly picture-perfect.
Here are a few styles for you to choose from:
Roller Blinds
Roller blinds are smart, smooth, and one of the most affordable styles. They come in a wide array of patterns and colours and can be used in virtually any room in your house.
Vertical Blinds
Vertical blinds are usually made of PVC, and you can clean them easily with a mild detergent. The vertical drop of the blinds prevents the build-up of dust and debris. These blinds are easy to use with your fingertips.
Roman Blinds
Roman blinds are often made of luxury materials that dress your window beautifully. To learn more about Roman blinds, click here.
This type of blind is used in bedrooms and living spaces, and you can also have them lined with blackout material creating a super dark room enabling you to get an undisturbed sleep.
Venetian Blinds
Venetian blinds can be made of a variety of materials and finishes.
The slats lay horizontal, with a mechanism to open them fully, close entirely, or partially open.
Pleated Blinds
Pleated or Cellular blinds are perfect in any room in your house. They are usually available in standard or blackout designs. You can get these blinds in various designs and fabrics to meet your style and colour schemes.
Mirage Blind Fabric
Mirage blinds create a unique light control, with the flexibility to have the blind wide open, completely closed or partially open. You can choose from a variety of textures, styles and colours to enhance the look and feel of your room.
Hive Blind Fabric
Hive Fabric blinds, incorporate an improved version of a cellular pleated structure that provides increased heat blocking and sound-absorbing technology into the fabric. This type and style of blind are ultra-modern and sleek. A unique cellular material also contains anti-static properties meaning that they can easily repel dust and dirt, allowing the blinds to stay fresh and clean for more extended periods. This style of blind would fit well in a hospital environment.
Shutters
Shutters fit on the exterior of your window and offer both protection and shading in your room interiors. You can also have shutters installed internally, to filter light and add a layer of security.
Can You Get Eco-Friendly Blinds?
Energy-efficient window blinds should consider looking eco-friendly ways to reduce energy wastage and fuel consumption, by adding a touch of glamour and style to your rooms and home in the process.
Here are a few questions that you may want to consider to help you find the right solutions that work for you:
- Can you recycle the blinds at the end of their life?
- Is the blind made from naturally sourced materials?
- What materials have been used, and how has the blind been manufactured sustainably?
- How energy-efficient is the fitted blind?
By thinking green and using eco-friendly methods and strategies to cut your home’s energy and fuel consumption, you are also helping reduce greenhouse gases and minimise your carbon footprint.
Many households are currently losing on average 30% of energy through windows. Glass is an efficient conductor of heat, hence why windows are strategically placed around the building to increase surface area and minimise too much heat escaping from windows.
Putting up window blinds will help to reduce and cut heat seeping from your property. Your blinds will provide a perfect solution to using natural methods of heating your home.
The best way to maximise the use of your window blinds is to adjust them to match the light conditions outside of your property. By changing your blinds or window coverings throughout the day, you will reduce your energy consumption.
Follow these tips to make the most out of your window blinds:
- Open blinds or curtains in the morning. This will allow your home to optimise the use of natural sunlight, that filters into your home through windows and doors.
- Close curtains or blinds in the evening as the sunlight starts to change at night. This will help trap any heat built up during the day; it is retained within your home.
- In the summer month, adjust the blinds throughout the day when there is available sunlight. Close blinds between mid-day to early afternoon, when the sunlight is at its maximum intensity, will ensure that rooms and the house do not become too overheated and uncomfortable.
- In the winter months keep your blinds closed when the sun out, this will help regulate the heat stored within the house. You will also reduce the need to use central heating, helping to reduce energy further.
- Maximise the use of your window blinds and natural light and install energy-efficient blinds to support your eco-friendly lifestyle.
The Smart window coverings will help you save money on your household bills. By adding Smart window coverings, you can save vasts amounts of money on your heating, electricity and reduce your energy consumption as a family substantially.
You can take this one step further by fitting Solar reflective blinds to your windows, as another effective option and adding a layer of regulating the heat within your home. The intelligent fabric used in these blinds is lined with a pearlescent backing, reflecting natural or direct sunlight as it hits the blinds. Solar reflective blinds also filter the light without causing your room to be plunged into complete darkness.
Thermal blinds can add an extra layer of warmth to your rooms and enable you to turn down your heating, primarily when you use it the most in winter months. These blinds use a unique fabric made up of multiple layers of thermal material, sandwiched within your chosen design and fabric. When the blond is rolled down over your window, it actively reduces any heat loss and maintains the heat within your property throughout the year.
If you would like to create a classic look in your home, you could add some stylish wooden blinds, which may be a perfect choice as wood is a natural insulator. This type of blind also creates a barrier across your window when closed, preventing heat loss or cold draughts.
New Technological Window Coverings
As we advance in every area of technology, and across every aspect of our lives, there are now companies investing in smart technologies for window coverings.
What are smart window coverings, these are curtains, blinds and shades controlled either by remote control or a mobile app? The remote app allows you to set up a schedule of different settings or adjust your window coverings from the comfort of your chair.
The beauty of the app or remote will allow you to do the following:
- You can open or close the window covering.
- You can set a schedule at different times.
- Some settings allow your window coverings to be triggered by the ambient sunlight.
Smart window covering technologies have many advantages; they also last a lot longer than other window coverings. The coverings allow you to moderate the levels of light in your rooms; however, to function effectively, you should try to use natural sunlight every day to boost your health and well-being.
If you cover inaccessible windows with the Smart technologies, you will easily control the light in your rooms, which you would do without these coverings.
Protecting Your Home
A trigger for burglars is that if they detect a property and know the occupants are away, they will hone in that the window covering remains static every day. This provides the perfect ground for a break-in occurring to your property.
Suppose you have installed the Smart window covering. In that case, you will be able to set a schedule to change the position of your window coverings, making it look as if someone is at home and deterring any unwanted intruders to your property.
Conclusion
Whichever type of blind or window covering you choose to help improve your energy efficiency, make sure that it fits and blends with your interiors too. Enjoy the process of making your home beautiful without blowing your budget, make the most of your energy and add money to your wallet with the great savings you will make on cutting energy wastage.