A crisis....or an opportunity? How to buy blinds

January 31, 2022 7:17 AM

A curtain-related mishap made me think that I might buy blinds for my room. I am looking for advice on price/quality and kinds of blinds.

I have two windows, slightly wider and longer than those in a modern house. I think I would like to hang the blinds externally so that they cover the entire frame.

I am not looking for blackout blinds. I am not looking for vinyl blinds. The blinds need to be hung from the top rather than rising from the bottom or starting in the middle so as not to ruin the window experience for the cat.

Worries: I have cheap wooden blinds from Target in a spare room, and they tend to fall down when pulled. (This does not really matter in that room since they're almost always down but letting light in.) I want blinds sturdy enough to be drawn frequently.

Do I want wood? Do I want bamboo? Do I want something else?

My room is pale blue with white moldings. The floor is a medium maple. My furniture is a mix but more dark than light. Blues predominate in the room. Do I want white blinds? Blue blinds? Maple-y blinds? I tend to think I might want light-colored ones to make the walls seem bigger and therefore make the rest of the room, which is full of art and books and a work from home set up, look less crowded.

What kinds of blinds did you get? What kinds of prices are good? Tell me all!

I would also like to recommend the extremely harrowing album The Country of Blinds by anti-imperialist art weirdos Skeleton Crew, that is Fred Frith, Tom Cora and Zeena Parkins of Henry Cow, Art Bears, News From Babel and related projects.

posted by Frowner to Home & Garden (10 answers total)

I have something like this in our house and they work well. You can get them custom-cut to nonstandard dimensions if you need, although I found what I was looking for at Lowes off the shelf. The big advantages are a) there are no cords and nothing interesting for a cat to interact with, b) the honeycomb pattern is surprisingly good at insulating (if you're somewhere cold where that matters.)

They're designed to fit reasonably tightly within the window, so that doesn't meet your criteria, but for me they're tight enough to work. And if you want curtains/valence/other decorative window treatments at some point, they won't interfere at all.
posted by restless_nomad at 7:22 AM on January 31, 2022 [4 favorites]

I have bought a few of these blinds from Amazon for different windows to replace the 35-yo original (metal, aluminum?) blinds in the house. They installed easily, have been plenty secure, and I am happy with what I got for the price. These are cordless blinds, so you raise/lower them by grabbing the bottom of the blind and raising/lowering it, so if the top of your window is beyond your reach, these may not be for you.
posted by xedrik at 7:33 AM on January 31, 2022

I had white wooden blinds in my last (rented) place, and always wished that they were the natural maple color. The white looked cold at night. But I really liked the fact that they were wood. They were custom made and I think fairly expensive.
posted by pinochiette at 7:34 AM on January 31, 2022

We have similar cellular shades to those mentioned above.

Our were from JCPenney's and basically had two shades end to end, one more opaque and one lightweight. If you pull the bottom edge down, the heavy part blocks all light; if you then pull down the think handle in the middle, the heavy layer accordions shut and a lightweight ayer simply blocks the view but admits daylight.

(And they last like ten years, so now we, too, are in the market for new ones!)
posted by wenestvedt at 7:48 AM on January 31, 2022

+1 to the cellular shades mentioned above. I got most of mine at Ikea -- they're cheap and they have held up well for 3 years now. I had one window that needed a size that Ikea didn't offer, and for that one, I ordered a custom size from Lowes. I highly recommend them for all the reasons listed above.
posted by ourobouros at 8:20 AM on January 31, 2022 [1 favorite]

We’ve got cordless wooden blinds from Menards that can be cut in store to your desired width. They come in white, maple, and dark. They were a lot less money than other options we looked into. I imagine HD and Lowes have a similar setup. The cats have tried to destroy them but they are durable and still working after a few years of use.

The only issue we had was the covers you put on after installing all got cut too long, so we had to return to the store. This happened 2 or 3 times, so it seemed like an issue with the machine or the process rather than an employee error.
posted by soelo at 8:21 AM on January 31, 2022 [1 favorite]

I bought the cellular shades also. Ordered them online from Home Depot. You can open them from the top or bottom which is very nice feature for me, might be for you. Very very happy with them.
posted by jcworth at 8:50 AM on January 31, 2022

I just installed some nice custom-sized aluminum blinds from Levolor in the room I use as my studio/office. They're sturdier than vinyl or wood. You can order them via Home Depot's website. And you can order color samples before you buy the blinds.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 10:34 AM on January 31, 2022

We have had good luck with the Blinds Chalet website. They have a variety of types and price points, and they will send you a number of free samples so you can see the quality and colors of the different types they offer.

They always have some type of sale on, some better than others. They are usually a percentage off, buy x get one free, or a combination. I want to say Presidents’ Day is one of their bigger sales.
posted by Short End Of A Wishbone at 1:04 PM on January 31, 2022 [1 favorite]

Cellular/honeycomb blinds are great. They provide some insulation. Some are black out, some are not. I have them in white in our living room and they let some light through, but that's perfect because I don't open them due to our neighbours sometimes walking past that window. So I get privacy and gentle daylight.
posted by kinddieserzeit at 4:35 PM on January 31, 2022