Help To Find The Right Window Treatments For Your Home (& A Peek At Ours!)

Update at bottom (March 2014)

After all the work we did renovating our home, I wanted beautiful window treatments to complete it all. My main criteria for whatever graced our windows was that it be 1. attractive and 2. safe.

I favored anything easy to clean and that would do a good job of screening out the light, since the first windows we’d be dressing are those in the boys’ rooms (early morning light is a beautiful thing, but too-early rising bunchkins waking up an already tired mom is not). We chose the Graber Crystal Pleat 3/4″ Single Cell Blackout Shades from Blinds.com in Moonlight (a soft, off white color).

The Graber Crystal Pleat 3/4″ Single Cell Blackout Shades come with a cordless option, and they do a good job of blocking out light even though we chose to have them inner mounted. You can see the cells in these photos, which do double duty- they help to keep indoor climate controlled (no heat loss) and at the same time filter out the light.

There are many options for the Graber Crystal Pleat Blackout Shades, and we specifically chose options for safety (cordless) and attractiveness (inner mounted, for a neater look- you can choose outer mounted, which blocks out even more light).

We are happy with our choice. It’s very easy to lift the bottom up and down by holding the tab with one hand, and the room is almost totally dark any time of day. The only con to these fabulous shades is that they are a bit noisy when I push them up or down, and I always worry the sound will wake the baby up. So far it hasn’t, but if this is a concern, I think there are more “silent” options.

Until we had the shades installed (by an installer we hired through Blinds.com), our windows were covered with temporary shades, and we still have a house full of them, but we plan to work our way around and get beautiful, quality window dressings for the rest of the windows too.

Find The Right Shades For You!

If you are looking for new window dressings, try the Blinds.com Blind Finder tool. It walks you through various questions about what you’d like for your window shades and blinds, and as you answer questions based on your needs, it narrows down your options. I used it to find mine… I chose attractive, light blocking, easy to maintain (doesn’t require cleaning often), affordable, and with a cordless option, and I was matched up with the Graber Blackout Shades featured here.

What do you think of our new shades? What kind of window dressings do you have?

Update: In less than a year, the company (Blinds.com) branded products have started malfunctioning. The black out shades aren’t used often, but stick anyway when we try to lift them up and down (sometimes the shades won’t close at all), and a set of Blinds.com brand white shutter blinds I bought for our kitchen have never functioned properly (they won’t “catch”, so I can’t lift them- ever). I can only get light into the kitchen by turning the shutters to horizontal, but I can’t ever lift the faux-wood blinds fully with the cord for an unobstructed window view.

The Levolor products we purchased from Blinds.com all perform fabulously. As a result of every “generic” version malfunctioning, but Levolor providing consistent quality, I would spend a little extra money for Levolor brand and skip the Blinds.com version of the products altogether.