In the interior design world, a lot of attention is usually given to the flashy and exciting areas of décor like furniture, colour schemes and art. While all of these are obviously important to your home’s look and aesthetic, the laser like focus on these areas of décor often leaves décor newbies over-informed in certain areas and very much under-informed in other important areas of décor.
While it makes sense that the more exciting elements of interior design get most of the focus, by not learning about the other areas of décor you could be doing your home a disservice, not allowing it to be as beautiful as it possibly could be.
One of these incredibly overlooked areas of home decoration is shading, with many homeowners not putting as much thought to their home’s shading as they should be, ultimately leading to certain blinds and curtains being used in rooms where they’re not ideal, ruining the day to day experience of life in your home.
So, to educate and inform you about what shading is, we spoke to the team at DotcomBlinds.com to get their expert advice on what shading solutions you need, to best fit the needs of you and your home.
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For Keeping Your Home Cool: Solar Reflective Roller Blinds
If you want to keep your home cool during the warmer months of the year, you have a few choices for what shading solution you select for your home, but according to the team at DotcomBlinds, there is one variety of window blinds which does the job of keeping your home cool the best.
The team at DotcomBlinds inform us that roller blinds with a solar reflective backing will work best for keeping your home cooler, especially when used in South facing windows. These blinds help keep your home cool, as the back of the fabric is covered in a reflective material, which will reflect light and heat away from your windows and out of your house, keeping the interior cooler.
A good second choice, if solar reflective roller blinds don’t fit your aesthetic needs could be any blind or shade made with a blackout fabric, these will still allow heat to pass in through your windows, but the thick fabric will insulate the space and keep the heat from spreading in your homes’ interior.
For Keeping Your Home Warm: Thermal Lined Roman Blinds
Alternatively, if your home has a tendency to get a bit chilly and you want to keep your home warm, by preventing heat loss around your home’s windows, DotcomBlinds also have a blind in mind that will efficiently do that job.
The team at DotcomBlinds say that if you want to keep your home nice and toasty, you can’t beat a Roman Blind made with a thermal insulating lining. These are much like normal Roman Blinds, but the blind is lined with a thermally efficient insulating lining which will help stop heat in your home from escaping out of the windows.
If Thermal Roman Blinds don’t fit in with your home’s style, DotcomBlinds can also recommend thick curtains, while they won’t have the same insulating powers as a thermally lined Roman Blind, a thick curtain will do a great job at providing insulation to your home’s windows.
For Blocking Light Pollution:
Light pollution is more than a mere annoyance for homeowners, without the proper shading system in place light pollution can be disastrous for both your health and your sleep, as light pollution will disrupt your sleep. Fortunately, the problem of light pollution is well known in the world of shading, so DotcomBlinds have a blind perfect for blocking light pollution.
Cassetted Blackout Blinds are the “crème de la crème” when it comes to blocking outside light from entering your home according to the team at DotcomBlinds. These Cassetted Blackout Blinds, use a blackout fabric to prevent light from passing through the fabric and a specialist side channel system for preventing any light whatsoever from entering around the edges of the blinds’ fabric.
If these Cassetted Blinds seem a bit too ‘heavy duty’ or don’t fit with the rest of your home’s décor, there are other options. DotcomBlinds say that most types of window shades can be made with blackout fabrics, while they won’t prevent light leaking in around the edges of the fabric, they will stop the majority of light pollution entering through your windows.
For Letting Light In: Vertical Blinds
On the other hand, if you want to let in as much light as possible into your home, you will need a completely different type of window shade for your home, to allow light to pass through your windows and illuminate your home.
For letting light bath your home’s interiors, the team at DotcomBlinds eagerly recommends using a set of Vertical Blinds, ideally using a semi-transparent fabric to allow light to pass through the fabric. Vertical Blinds are ideal for letting in light, as they can be rotated to allow as much light into your home as you want at any given time.
However, if Vertical Blinds aren’t your jam, the team at DotcomBlinds would recommend using net curtains, which will let light pour in through your windows and also maintain some privacy for your home, preventing passers-by from peaking in through your windows.
Now, after reading this article and the expert advice from DotcomBlinds’ team, you should be informed and equipped to choose the right shading solution next time you update your home’s décor, ensuring that you buy a window shade that does what you need it to and looks effortlessly stylish at the same time.
It is important to remember, though, like all areas of interior decoration, the biggest factor when choosing any shading solution should be a personal style to ensure that you are happy with your purchase. While DotcomBlinds have given us some recommendations for certain situations, style is always a big factor for home décor, make sure you balance out your need for style with the functionality and utility of the window shades you use at home.
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