We get our customers asking, which is better, Blinds, curtains or both
to which we are always replying, depends!
I know it is easy for us to say, but that word, “depends” does not help the customer that is confused and looking for help.
We normally add to this, “well, your environment dictates, what are you looking for from your windows”
This helps more as it helps the customer start to drill down into what they are looking for from their window environment.
The customer starts to think about what it is they want, that is from style to more light to privacy and heat retention, the list is endless, and each house and customer changes these reasons and also mix and matches these reasons.
Lets examine environments.
Lets say you have a bay window, with flat walls either side that the bay window is attached to, you can put a curtain in front of the bay, this is great, but you might restrict light more than you mean to, unless you can hide the curtain behind the wall, giving your room full exposure to the outside world, you wont want to add a tunnel effect to the light entering your room.
What about providing privacy? some customers do need privacy in their rooms due to their situations and where their house stands, some peoples house do not need extra covers on their windows, but not all houses are set in this environment, where curtains are enough to have the maximum privacy for their home!
With the above Bay window, lets say you are on a level with a level path outside your window and the path is connected to a busy road, then is curtains enough for the privacy? will light be your main concern here? what is your view, is it houses across the street or the busy road.
In most busy town, they went through a process of building tall houses, this is shown on a lot of older streets, sunlight doesn’t get to lower levels, this makes for darker rooms, worse in houses where the living room is facing away from the south!
So, when planning out how you would like your windows, taking these elements into consideration, helps massively! especially if controlling the light is an issue!
Another example of controlling the light, we fitted a blind for a customer, our customer loves spending time in his kitchen, its the main communal point, the reason for him having a Venetian blinds was his kitchen is south facing, when talking, the light is direct in the eye, when we are in winter, and the sun is low over the horizon, this is even worse, which is why the customer picked a Venetian, and straight away the customer seen the benefits, a slight twist of the slates, and you control the light!