The windows are the best thing about our new house. They are old and many need some repair, but they’re full of character and they bathe us in natural light all day long. I can’t tell you how many people have told us the place feels like a tree house, with all the natural light. We totally agree.
But after we lived here for a few days, we realized there’s one problem with tree house living … there’s no privacy. So after a few nights of inadvertently putting on a show for the neighbors, we realized we desperately needed some window treatments.
We began looking at blinds, shades, and curtains, and started making lists of the pros and cons. We love the idea of bringing pattern and color into our neutrally-colored walls through curtains. But given the number of windows we have and their size (we have 6 windows in the living room alone), most of our walls would be covered in floor-to-ceiling drapery. Choosing a print, color-scheme, etc. felt overwhelming, so we decided to enter the world of blinds for a more subtle solution.
We got in touch with the good people at Blinds.com, who were tremendously helpful in helping us navigate the paths of blinds, shades, and panels. The only thing we knew going into the process was that we wanted a natural look – stained or white wood or bamboo. And something that would match the character of our home. We also knew we wanted a covering that would provide a barrier between our house and the outside world, especially at night.
The most helpful part of our blinds search was the face-to-face Skype call we did with Ben. He asked a lot of great questions to help us tease out what we were looking for, and we were able to walk him around our house so that he could get a look at at our window trim and help us think about mounting options (our windows are 100 years old, so there’s a lot of “character” to deal with). Our chat with Ben helped us realize that we most likely wanted a blind, versus a roman shade for these three reasons:
1. We wanted to be able to control the amount of light the entered our house depending on the time of day. We wanted full coverage at night, partial coverage at sunset when the light pours into the Southwest side of the house, and little coverage throughout the day. If we went the roman shade route, we would need to put fabric liners on them in order to achieve full privacy at night. These liners would ultimately give us less control during the daytime hours.
2. We wanted something that would lie flat when raised. Given the unique mounting of our windows (we only had 3/4 of an inch on which to mount hardware), shades would have bunched at the top when drawn open. Blinds, on the other hand, fold flat, and are tucked neatly away.
3. We needed something that would be easy to clean and sturdy enough to withstand life with two young children. If we went with a roman shade, we knew we wanted something that was a natural fiber, which Ben mentioned is a little harder to clean. We also had visions of baby food (we have a highchair a mere foot from our dining room windows) and other kid-related loot flying through the air and encountering our window treatments.
After our phone call, Ben sent us a package of samples of blinds and shades in a variety of materials and finishes so that we could get a better idea of what would work best for our windows. After much deliberation we settled on the perfect blinds for our windows.
Check back tomorrow to see our windows! Spoiler alert: we are in love with our new coverings.
While you wait for the reveal, why not enter our giveaway to win one of two $500 Blinds.com gift cards! It’s quick and free to enter. Click here to find out how.
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This post was sponsored by Blinds.com, and they donated product for us to review; however, all opinions are mine alone.
