Top 5 Mistakes Made When Using Blinds As Window Treatments In Cary, Raleigh, and Chapel Hill.

Choosing blinds for your home is an enjoyable and easy process if you get the right advice from trained professionals. Use the following as a guideline to avoid costly mistakes and design blunders in your home.

• Materials – The primary materials associated with blinds are genuine wood blinds and faux wood blinds. Faux is a term used to describe vinyl or composite construction which is a mix of synthetic materials (basically plastic).
  
  For decades, wood blinds have dominated homes due to their warmth, charm, and longevity. It is common to see original wood blinds in homes 50 plus years of age. A wide range of louver widths, thicknesses, and designs are available complementing most every style of home. You’ll want to stick with a nationally known company such as Hunter Douglas as generic imitations sometimes use wood that is not properly dried, resulting in poor performance.
  
  Faux blinds can be the better choice for garages and other high humidity areas of the home due to their ability to withstand moisture and heat. Faux blinds (http://www.tripleablind.com/product.php?id=4) are cheaper than wood, but are heavier when lifted and therefore require more ladder cords for a given width for louver support. Rule of thumb is not to install faux blinds in your core living areas as they have a tendency to droop and look cheap as years pass. The last thing you want to do is cheapen the look of your custom home with plastic blinds. Keep these in the areas they are meant for!
• Proper Lighting – The most common mistake we see is a homeowner putting a room darkening blind in a bathroom where natural light is critical for dressing, makeup and ambiance. In order to achieve privacy, you must close the blind, blocking all incoming natural light. The situation is the same for family rooms and kitchen nooks. A better choice would be honeycomb shades, or Silhouette® shades, both which will provide privacy when down but allow natural light to penetrate so you don’t feel like you’re living in a box.
• Exterior Appearance – Maintaining a consistent look across the front of your home is vital for that first and lasting impression. If you choose a dark stain color and the exterior of your home is neutral, be prepared for a noticeable difference in contrast – see choosing the right color below. Multiple louver widths create an awkward look, e.g., 2” vs. 2.5”, and avoid mixing vertical blinds with horizontal types.
• Mounting - We see professionals and consumers alike mounting blinds on the outside of window trim when they could have been mounted inside for a cleaner, more finished look. Many homes have very shallow spacing for mounting brackets on the inside of the window jamb and the assumption is they cannot be inside mounted. We have not found a window yet where you could not mount the blinds on the inside. You should insist on inside mounted products unless there is an obvious reason not to.
• Choosing The Right Color - Many homeowners want to match their blinds with other home décor such as cabinets, hard wood flooring, and furniture. This is too “matchy-matchy” and can produce a boring result. The proper way to start with the color selection process is to use the window trim color as a starting point and then analyze the color from the exterior of the home. Keep in mind wall colors often change over the years, trim paint usually stays the same. To avoid swapping out blinds every few years, concentrate on neutral colors that have the ability to go with most any change in interior décor.

Are your window treatments outdated or not adding to the glamour of your home? Call our Hunter Douglas Gallery® Certified Design Team today! (919) 380-0898 or Sales@Tripleablind.com.