Window Coverings: Vertical Blinds or Cellular Shade?

[azstonie]

Hi All:

I have three large windows to cover:

A. Master Suite Window 94-3/4" width and 74" height.
--->This window must be room darkening and a plus is energy efficient (I'm near Phoenix).

B. and C. Living Room windows that are set back in a patio, so no direct sunlight ever. 70" width and 74" height.

All three are presently covered with vertical blinds (this was my sole option 14 years ago). Now there are more options.

Question: Regarding vertical blinds, does anyone have the S-curved ones? DO THEY CLICK AND RATTLE? I run my ceiling fan in the master bedroom and my current old verticals click/clack/rattle. I'm wondering how these S-curved blinds fare.

For the master suite window, I'm also considering cellular shades. Levelor has a good sale going (30% off) and I'm wondering if for this window I should do two shades on one headrail.

Any advice is much appreciated!!!

 

[marcy]

Hi Kristie,

We have cellular shades on the side light by our front door and over the window on the front door. I hate them. They seem very cheap to me. I haven't had them a year yet and I am ready to get rid of them.

We got some plantation shutters in our den (an arched window) and in Marty's office (standard out square windows) and really like them but they aren't total blackout.

We had vertical blinds at our old house and while they looked nice they did clack and rattle when you opened them and if you had a window open and the breeze was moving them.

We got woven shades put in the living room and our bedroom with blackout liners then put curtains on poles with blackout liners as well. That makes the room totally dark which really helps me sleep.

We got our stuff from Budget Blinds. Local rep has given us horrible service but I like their stuff.

Marcy

 

[chemgirl]

I work for a textile manufacturer that makes fabric for blinds. As far as trends go, vertical is out. Our biggest seller is pleated fabric. If you can hold out for another year, there are some really nice styles in the pipeline from several manufacturers.

We currently have cellular in our house and I like them. They offer a bit of insulation for draftier windows.

I'm also a huge fan of shutters. Gorgeous clean look.

Eta: pleated woven shades come in blackout. It's a multi-layer lamination process where a blackout film is sandwiched between decorative fabric and a white backing material. Your larger window would be considered wide goods, but you should be able to order a wide shade or blind from Levalor. Wide is becoming more popular and if trade shows are any indication, there will be more options in wide goods in the near future. For example, wide blackout has just started to become available within the last year or two.

Eta eta: I just remembered a neat type of blind for hot climates. I'm not sure if anyone is making them anymore.but there is a type of blind that has a reflective, vacuum metalized layer between the decorative fabric and white backing material. This vacuum metalized layer works as a blackout and also relfecrs sunlight to help keep your room cooler. For some reason it's not a terribly popular product so I'm not sure if anyone is making it at the moment. Worth asking your sales person.

 

[momhappy]

We have cellular shades in the kids rooms. They are blackout and they seem to offer a fair amount of insulation too - on hot summer days, I notice that if I keep the shades closed, it doesn't get quite as hot in the back bedrooms.

 

[PintoBean]

I like how cellular blinds look but did not go that route because I read that bugs end up in the honeycomb ..

I thought I'd over share my blinds experience to date. I'm pretty much done with renovations and almost all moved in so I'm happy right now.

We ordered our blinds through Costco and went the route of natural woven blinds. What I ended up doing was going to Costco Bali blinds and ordering about thirty samples bc I'm cray cray. The limit is ten so ten to the new house, ten to the old apartment, and ten to mom and dad's house. I decided to go with lighter colored blinds and with light or white threads because I figured the sun would bleach the brown or black threads over time.

Once I narrowed down my blinds, I contacted costcos graber blinds and scheduled a consultation. Bali and Graber are owned by the same parent company. The samples the consultant brought were just like the Bali. You pay more for the consultation services, blinds, and there is installation for Graber as well. I am glad I did not go DYI with Bali blinds from Costco because it turns out none of my windows are the same size, and they get wider towards the bottom. I think a drunk cut the window holes. I ended up going with two of the blinds I originallly liked and selected a third blind I actually didn't have in my batch of 30. Yes I am cray cray... The consultant measured top, middle, bottom of each window twice. She then told me that she wanted to have an installer come to re measure and adjust her measurements if necessary. And she agreed the woven blinds are best for my situation because we can kinda push them a little to the left and right to try to accommodate the wonky windows. I also chose valence or bottom trims with a wavey edge just in case a straight edge would accentuate my drunk windows when close to the sill.

As for pricing, the vendor is budget blinds and the agreement with Costco is that Costco members get 30% off list. Also, there was a promotion for cordless option being free which I was able to utilize for a couple windows. I think my windows with either the wavy trim on valence or edge couldn't be combined with cordless. Can't recall right now... And I also get a Costco card that will be worth 10% of the purchase price!!!

My windows are going to be installed on Monday. I am so excited. We are dodging in and out of the bathroom and trying to avoid the windows in the master bedroom as best as we can while changing in the evenings with some lights on. Oh for the bathroom we went faux wood.

 

[azstonie]

Hey Marcy thank you for the info!!

Momhappy, good to know---are they single, double or triple cells you have?

Chemgirl, I will hold off on these windows in anticipation of the upcoming new goods!!! Thank you for posting I have dual cells on the eastern windows (9) and I love them, the rooms stay cool.
The cords break about year #5, though!!!! Many thanks for helping me avoid a window coverings V8 moment! (I know verticals are out but damn if they aren't easy and affordable!) I like my views so plantations are out.

 

[chemgirl]

I like how cellular blinds look but did not go that route because I read that bugs end up in the honeycomb ..

I thought I'd over share my blinds experience to date. I'm pretty much done with renovations and almost all moved in so I'm happy right now.

We ordered our blinds through Costco and went the route of natural woven blinds. What I ended up doing was going to Costco Bali blinds and ordering about thirty samples bc I'm cray cray. The limit is ten so ten to the new house, ten to the old apartment, and ten to mom and dad's house. I decided to go with lighter colored blinds and with light or white threads because I figured the sun would bleach the brown or black threads over time.

Once I narrowed down my blinds, I contacted costcos graber blinds and scheduled a consultation. Bali and Graber are owned by the same parent company. The samples the consultant brought were just like the Bali. You pay more for the consultation services, blinds, and there is installation for Graber as well. I am glad I did not go DYI with Bali blinds from Costco because it turns out none of my windows are the same size, and they get wider towards the bottom. I think a drunk cut the window holes. I ended up going with two of the blinds I originallly liked and selected a third blind I actually didn't have in my batch of 30. Yes I am cray cray... The consultant measured top, middle, bottom of each window twice. She then told me that she wanted to have an installer come to re measure and adjust her measurements if necessary. And she agreed the woven blinds are best for my situation because we can kinda push them a little to the left and right to try to accommodate the wonky windows. I also chose valence or bottom trims with a wavey edge just in case a straight edge would accentuate my drunk windows when close to the sill.

As for pricing, the vendor is budget blinds and the agreement with Costco is that Costco members get 30% off list. Also, there was a promotion for cordless option being free which I was able to utilize for a couple windows. I think my windows with either the wavy trim on valence or edge couldn't be combined with cordless. Can't recall right now... And I also get a Costco card that will be worth 10% of the purchase price!!!

My windows are going to be installed on Monday. I am so excited. We are dodging in and out of the bathroom and trying to avoid the windows in the master bedroom as best as we can while changing in the evenings with some lights on. Oh for the bathroom we went faux wood.

Just want to clarify that darker colors shouldn't fade if you are buying a higher end product, ie Bali or Graber. Roman shades are treated with an acrylic coating that protects the fabric from fading. Fabrics are tested for fading and color fastness. This holds true for most product labelled as made in North America.

That said, I like the lighter colors better anyway.

 

[azstonie]

Hi Pinto, we were posting about the same time, I missed your post the first time through. Thank you for posting re Costco and Grabor, the Costco/Grabor rep has failed to appear for two appointments which burned through my entire day today. Grrr. So your info re Costco/Grabor cost and Costco deal is the first specific info I've received and not for lack of trying on my part.

I went on Levelor and Bali's websites. Bali's is not as good as Levelor but they have enormous cellular shade for enormous windows, it runs/pulls vertically as opposed to horizontally---chemgirl, what do you think of those? Tomorrow I will post a link for viewing it (it's late and I'm on a tablet, no mouse for copy/paste of link).

Pinto, re bugs I've had cellular double and triple cells for 14 year s, no bugs but the cord to raise and lower them breaks about year 4 and 5. Frustrating, as the rest of the shade is fine....

 

[missy]

Try Costco again Kristie but ask for another assistant to help.Their return policy and pricing makes it hard to beat IMO.

The shades we have at the beach house are Levolor and we got them at Lowes. It was so easy to measure and install them ourselves. The shades have a button on the bottom which allows for easy up and down. They came in a variety of colors and were so quick, easy and inexpensive to install that what became a temporary and quick solution is sticking around for a while till we decide what permanent window coverings we want there. 4 years later haha. They look nice.

http://www.lowes.com/Home-Decor/Window-Treatments/_/N-1z11osb/pl

http://lowes.levolor.com/?cm_cr=Blinds+%26+Shades-_-Web+Activity-_-Blinds+and+Shades+CR3+Activity-_-SC_Blinds++Shades_CenterRail_Area3-_-229107_1_&cm_sp=HomeFashions-_-HomeDecor|PopularCat-_-Merch|Levolor_Special_Order_Blinds_and_Shades&cm_cr=Window+Treatments-_-Web+Activity-_-Window+Treatments+Top+Flexible+Activity-_-SC_Window+Treatments_TopFlexible_Area-_-10391557_9_http://lowes.levolor.com/

 

[momhappy]

^Ours our Levelor and from Lowes too. DH measured, we ordered them online, and they arrived fairly quickly. The whole process was pretty simple and we got them on sale, which was nice.

 

[PintoBean]

Hi Pinto, we were posting about the same time, I missed your post the first time through. Thank you for posting re Costco and Grabor, the Costco/Grabor rep has failed to appear for two appointments which burned through my entire day today. Grrr. So your info re Costco/Grabor cost and Costco deal is the first specific info I've received and not for lack of trying on my part.

I went on Levelor and Bali's websites. Bali's is not as good as Levelor but they have enormous cellular shade for enormous windows, it runs/pulls vertically as opposed to horizontally---chemgirl, what do you think of those? Tomorrow I will post a link for viewing it (it's late and I'm on a tablet, no mouse for copy/paste of link).

Pinto, re bugs I've had cellular double and triple cells for 14 year s, no bugs but the cord to raise and lower them breaks about year 4 and 5. Frustrating, as the rest of the shade is fine....

I think you need to let Costco know that whoever they are contracted with locally by you is dropping the ball, and thus a bad reflection on Costco.

The budget blinds by me has been great. I will call Costco to ask them to ping the vendor because i want a status update (and i keep forgetting to save the vendor's number). Costco then emails the vendor to call me, and they call me within the day.

 

[PintoBean]

I like how cellular blinds look but did not go that route because I read that bugs end up in the honeycomb ..

I thought I'd over share my blinds experience to date. I'm pretty much done with renovations and almost all moved in so I'm happy right now.

We ordered our blinds through Costco and went the route of natural woven blinds. What I ended up doing was going to Costco Bali blinds and ordering about thirty samples bc I'm cray cray. The limit is ten so ten to the new house, ten to the old apartment, and ten to mom and dad's house. I decided to go with lighter colored blinds and with light or white threads because I figured the sun would bleach the brown or black threads over time.

Once I narrowed down my blinds, I contacted costcos graber blinds and scheduled a consultation. Bali and Graber are owned by the same parent company. The samples the consultant brought were just like the Bali. You pay more for the consultation services, blinds, and there is installation for Graber as well. I am glad I did not go DYI with Bali blinds from Costco because it turns out none of my windows are the same size, and they get wider towards the bottom. I think a drunk cut the window holes. I ended up going with two of the blinds I originallly liked and selected a third blind I actually didn't have in my batch of 30. Yes I am cray cray... The consultant measured top, middle, bottom of each window twice. She then told me that she wanted to have an installer come to re measure and adjust her measurements if necessary. And she agreed the woven blinds are best for my situation because we can kinda push them a little to the left and right to try to accommodate the wonky windows. I also chose valence or bottom trims with a wavey edge just in case a straight edge would accentuate my drunk windows when close to the sill.

As for pricing, the vendor is budget blinds and the agreement with Costco is that Costco members get 30% off list. Also, there was a promotion for cordless option being free which I was able to utilize for a couple windows. I think my windows with either the wavy trim on valence or edge couldn't be combined with cordless. Can't recall right now... And I also get a Costco card that will be worth 10% of the purchase price!!!

My windows are going to be installed on Monday. I am so excited. We are dodging in and out of the bathroom and trying to avoid the windows in the master bedroom as best as we can while changing in the evenings with some lights on. Oh for the bathroom we went faux wood.

Just want to clarify that darker colors shouldn't fade if you are buying a higher end product, ie Bali or Graber. Roman shades are treated with an acrylic coating that protects the fabric from fading. Fabrics are tested for fading and color fastness. This holds true for most product labelled as made in North America.

That said, I like the lighter colors better anyway.

Good to know, chemgirl! With the woven wooden blinds, there are threads that run vertically, and those were what I was afraid of fading. There is always someone that knows something that you are inquiring about on Pricescope. I love it!!!

 

[soocool]

I have cellular shades all throughout my house with blackouts in all the bedrooms which have double windows. I did outside mount two on one rail Bali cellular with cordless lift in the bedrooms. I bought all my shades through steve's wallpaper and blinds online (they used to be american andvwallpaper) and installed them myself and saved a ton of money.