Decorating a new home is like embarking on a long-awaited adventure. A lot of careful thought and planning goes into creating the perfect blend of aesthetics and comfort. After all, your new home is the perfect backdrop against which you can beautifully canvass your aesthetic sensibilities and quality blinds like Zebra Blinds Canada are a must.
Crafting that ideal look is not easy, especially with so many amazing options available for home décor enthusiasts. Everything, from the tiniest cushion to the bulkiest garden furniture, requires great deal of window shopping and a lot of market research to get it just right.
Attention to the minute details is the key here and finding the best quality blinds is one of those details that is easily ignored. However, getting the right blind for you new home will go a long way in improving the comfort levels of your interiors.
Things to consider when buying quality blinds
While a lot depends on your décor choice, some practical aspects should be taken into account before you settle on a selection.
Functionality: The biggest consideration is the functionalities you might wish to add to your blind. A one-piece fabric, like roller blinds or roman blinds, would be great for insulation and a room-darkening effect. Solar blinds are great for preserving the view. Cellular and honeycomb shades are great for insulation, while vertical and venetian blinds offer great light control options. The features you decide to include in your house will determine the long-term comfort and ambience of your room.
Fit: Where you fit the blind can have an impact on your choice. An inside mount is great for saving space and for layering. However, an outside mount will let you insulate your room better, as in this position, the blind can overlap the window for better coverage.
Quality: While sifting through so many choices, the quality is easily overlooked. However, if you spend a bit more money on quality blinds now, you will get blinds that are both durable and low maintenance. Also, expensive blinds look better, and offer a reliable blend of features and functionalities, all within one single package.
Maintenance: The maintenance required to keep your blinds looking great for years is another factor that should be taken into consideration. Cellular shades, vertical blinds, and roller shades tend to gather less dust and are easy to clean. A soft duster or a vacuum cleaner is all you will need. Horizontal blinds, tend to be dust-magnets. Metallic or PVC horizontal blinds can be cleaned with a damp cloth, but you can’t do the same with wooden blinds.
How to find the perfect blind
Material Selection – This is probably the trickiest bit. How do you select a material when there are so many options?
The first-rule-of-thumb is to match the material to your room. Each room has its own specific requirements. You can consider thick blackout shades for bedrooms, media rooms, or living rooms, to block out most of the light and create a night-like atmosphere even during the day.
A bedroom requires both insulation, light control, and privacy. A venetian wooden blind would give you adequate light, while preserving the privacy. After sundown, when you turn on the heater, just shut the slats to insulate the windows. The same wooden blinds, however, would be useless in high-humidity areas like the kitchen and bathroom, as wooden blinds warp in humid conditions. For such environment, vinyl blinds or metal blinds are the best solution.
If you need to work-from-home, you would want to have a perfect blend of light and privacy in your study. With heat-reflective fabric vertical blinds, you would be able to tilt the slats to move the glare away from the computer screen, yet get an abundance of natural light, all the while retaining the privacy.
For any room with a lot of windows, like sitting rooms or dining rooms, you will need to find a solution that is both easy on the eyes, as well on the budget. Honeycomb cellular shades fit the bill perfectly. They save energy, look great, and come in prices that would allow you go for more specialized treatment elsewhere.
Operational Benefits: Next you have to look at the operational benefits you wish to include in your blinds. Some rooms of your new home would require special attention. Living rooms need both natural light and privacy. You might wish to have something like TDBU (Top-Down-Bottom-Up) operation that allows you to open the blind from both top and bottom, leaving the middle portion covered. This way you get loads of natural light, while the room remains hidden from view. Similarly, dual roller shades give you the flexibility of having both light filtering and room darkening fabric on a single headrail. This will be a great feature to have in your bedroom. If you have children or pets, you might with to go for the cordless feature to remove any strangulation risk.
Price
Overall, vinyl blinds cost the least and real-wood blinds cost the most, with the rest lying somewhere in between. Some blind manufacturers, like Graber, Crown, Bali, offer quality custom blinds in a wide range of prices, while retail companies like Ikea, Lowe, Home Depot are great places to buy standard blinds. Buy Graber shades online to grab attractive discounts. A bit of shopping around online can give you a discount of up to 40% on many popular blinds. Big discounts will allow you to have the best blinds in best possible prices.
Warranty
Look for manufacturers who provide product warranty. Look for a good warranty on blind hardware, and the material. While most warranties won’t cover wear-and-tear, it would provide protection against common manufacturing defects. Read the fine-print and go for the warranties that suit your requirements the most.
When you have made you choice, ask your manufacturer to send you free samples. Use these samples, in addition to customer reviews, to inform your final choice. A bit of patience and research will pay big dividends when you see your new home all decked up in the best quality blinds.
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