Love of Blinds (and curtain-free)

After years of living in “temporary” housing, I learned just how great an impact window treatments could make on a room, while improving the look of your house (or, for that matter, your studio, your “triple dorm” [as in 3 clothes-loving-ladies living in a single 200 sq. ft. bedroom], or your “wait-this-isn’t-my-furniture” sublet). When I moved into the house, the mismatched horizontal blinds were among the first things to come down.  The plastic ones that were installed had long past begun to discolor and, had become misshapen. Since I cleaned and painted (both, feriously), I decided to complement the new white trim throughout the house with custom-cut faux wood blinds, which I purchased from Home Depot and installed gradually over the course of a few months – affordable (relative to real-wood) and REALLY easy to install by yourself.

I love, love, love the uniformity from room to room (and from the exterior), which is why I decided to install them throughout the whole house in the soft white finish. They’ve been left down all year round, just allowed to be opened and closed daily as needed to let light flow in, and maybe it’s all in my head, but I think the light reflects even more beautifully off the bright white horizontal lines. (And, is there a psychosis for someone who likes horizontal lines too much?) Anyways, they really make quite the difference.

The dining room sliding glass door was once affixed with heavy white vertical blinds, which were also removed soon after I moved in. I considered curtains (even bought a curtain rod that would gracefully extend the entire length of the back wall), but decided to test out a wide roller blind (mostly because I couldn’t believe IKEA had one wide enough). The roller blind (a piece of it is shown in the 3rd pic, above, and another below) was a little bit harder to install, because the metal pole that the shade rolls on needs to be an exact length to fit inside the window frame (this involved hand-sawing little slivers of metal from the ends, and carefully trimming the fabric about a quarter-of-an-inch to fit the space). The sleek, clean look of the roller blind actually ended up looking great – it’s a nice way to block the light (and wandering eyes) out of the house, and I’ve found that it really helps to insulate the doorway during the winter, (and keeps the house cool during the summer months).

I don’t have curtains anywhere in the house (yet) because I’m still weighing over my options, but in the interim, I’m really happy with the minimalistic look (and functionality) provided by my clean, white window coverings.