Pam's Home Improvements

One of the things about a home that gets me and I spend so much time on are the windows. These to me fall in the top ten to me right there next to gardening when it comes to home improvements. The first thing I want to discuss about windows are the blinds. Now there are many types of blinds, and if you are purchasing blinds for your home in order to improve the look of it, do not go cheap.

See the cheap blinds are made out of a composite or some sort, some are vinyl and some are plastic with a mixture of other cheap material. They look great and all and they are cheap, those are two pluses and the reason that many people purchase them. Some of the drawbacks to this are they are not very durable. They break easy, if you have a pet such as a cat, cats love to get up in the windows and if you have cheap blinds the cat will more than likely tear them up, which is no good. Another downfall to purchasing these kinds of blinds is that they cant handle the suns UV rays for periods of time. If you have your blinds in a position to where they are under a lot of sunlight, you can expect them to last for a couple years before they start to warp and bend.

This is why I choose wood faux blinds over the cheap ones. Yes they are more expensive, but the cat is not going to be able to break them and they will not be affected by the UV rays. Now there is one drawback if you are using mini-blinds in the faux style, and that is the slats are very heavy. So if you want to see out the window then it is kind of heavy to pull them up.

When it comes to choosing vertical blinds or mini blinds I got with mini wood faux blinds in most situations. The only time that I would not recommend going with mini blinds is if you have sliding glass doors, as most mini blinds are not made that long anyway, and in my opinion it looks kind of stupid, where the vertical blinds are much more easy to maneuver.

Installing the blinds is something that can easily be done if you have some sharp screws and a decent drill. Most blinds come with detailed and illustrated pictures that show you how to install the blinds. The most important thing is to make sure that you have the right size. So make sure to get an accurate measure of the window frame, and then subtract a half inch from that measurement and that will ensure that they fit and that the slats completely cover the window.