Tell me about your stylish vertical blinds

[BillywigSting]

Back story - have recently moved house and almost every window is in need of new blinds.

The rub is, I like venetian blinds (though not the dust) and dp is dead set on verticals.

I don't really like vertical blinds, they remind me too much of school and office buildings, and Dr surgeries in the 90s.

Please tell me about /show me your vertical blinds that are less corporate looking and bit more homely.

I'm trying to get my head around the idea of them in the name of fairness and keeping the peace (I have chosen all of the flooring and curtains. Dp is insistant on vertical blinds. I'm choosing the style though).

Hello. I can suggest a few alternatives.
Take a look at Luxaflex Twist Blinds or Luxaflex Facette Blinds both give you similar properties to Venetians or Verticals but with a modern feel and the benefit of not needing to dust!
There are other options such as the Luxaflex Silouette Blind for a softer more diffused view or for extra privacy. Then my favourite the new Luxaflex Pirouette (also available in blackout for bedrooms).
Luxaflex is expensive, and you will find cheaper knock-off versions of most of these products. However, Luxaflex offer various control options, all of which are designed around child safety.
I have the Luxaflex Pirouette Blinds and I have chosen to motorise them with the new Powerview control option (I can work my blinds through an App), maximum child safety.
I LOVE mine!
The only thing similar to a Vertical which is new on the market is the Louvolite Allusion, but it's not my thing.
I've attached photos of my Pirouette Blinds - sorry they are not the best shots.

Also I don’t know how many vertical blinds he’s actually cleaned because as you know, they’re anything but easy to clean. Nasty, horrid things.

He just says they don't get as dirty.

They might not look as dusty but they certainly get pretty grim. And taking them all down to put it the washing machine (while then having effectively no blinds for most of the day) and drip drying them, which takes about eleventy billion years, is far more of a pita than wafting a feather duster at them twice a week or so.

But he doesn't believe I will dust them. I do have a pretty bad track record for this to be fair

They will jangle and clatter about sounding like wind up chattering teeth when the windows are open.

Now feel like the blinds are irrelevant, isn't the issue here that whatever you chose for anything is fine so long as he likes it, as you said. So he's saying you chose the other items, it just so happened you chose something he would have chosen.

Do you own the house too? You are earning equally too by being a sahm and it's rude of him to suggest otherwise. I hope you're opinion counts sometimes when he disagrees or you really do have bigger problems.

I’ve got utterly fantastic daylight roller blinds from IKEA. They let the light in but total privacy. They were cheap as chips too. £30 for a 2m wide window.

Disclaimer - picture taken from google as it’s dark here and I can’t be arsed to try and get a pic of mine .

Ooo, notexactly, do they really stop glare? They're the only IKEA ones wide enough for my SW facing kitchen window.

@SwedishEdith They really do. In direct sunlight the room is still really bright but it just softens it.

They were the only blinds I could find that aren’t £££ for the width we needed.

Plus simple as pie to dust. Just a wee swizz over with a micro fibre cloth.

Privacy wise show him these - they are great.

www.blinds-2go.co.uk/day-and-night-blinds
They let the light in but people can't see in & can be closed to keep light out. They are also quite good (for a blind) at insulation because of the double layer.

If you get perfect fit blinds you can open them from the bottom up also ensuring privacy. Roman blinds look really good in a bay - if he's that fussed about privacy suggest some window film to go along side them, there are some really stylish practical choices out there.

notexactly. Thanks. I bought some Dunelm ones to try out and they were useless.

www.windowfilm.co.uk/buy-online/frostbrite/view-designs-patterns/fb066-frosted-window-film

Sorry here is the link for window film.

Oh no, they're horrible - and so are those frilly knicker things which thankfully seem to have vanished from view these days. Please don't, you'll be sorry if you do. And review the husband. Could do better. Good luck.

Haven't RTFT but vertical blinds aren't even used in rentals/dentists/doctors now. They are so shite.

Why do you have to be the one to clean the blinds?

I wish I had taken a picture of the disgusting state my old ones were in before I threw them out. That would have cured him of the insane notion that they stay clean.

Imagine stained off-white, with bits of draggy chain enmeshed in glorious spider web with random bits of other insect mixed in for unique speckled tweed effect. With dark stains from old glue and staples to finish with the industrial shabby chic effect.

Even my ds expressed utter horror.

CSleeptime makes a good point. You didn't really choose those other items though, as you had to make sure he liked them too. So how come that, for his "turn," he can pick something you detest?

Tell him that if he wants these, he must be the one to clean them. He will be fine as long as you don't have any children, pets, and everybody in the house is bald. Otherwise he has to hoover the debris out of them every week and then repair the damage caused by touching them.

Also remind him that your choice for everything else was severely constrained to be acceptable to him. If you had chosen what you really wanted, it would have been white long shagpile carpet and bordello red velvet wallpaper with emerald green chandeliers.

I don't understand why you would buy anything for your house that you're not both on board with.
I have only ever made "executive decisions" on things that dh couldn't give a toss about. Otherwise, it's just been a series of compromises. Where's the compromise here? He's forcing you to concede to his will on these HIDEOUS blinds (make no mistake, they're awful) on account of the fact he's "gone along with" your choice previously. In fact, "your" choice, wasn't your preference either really, as you had to take his opinion into account.

@shazkiwi thank you for that recommendation - it's just the blind I need and I didn't think it existed!

We have some vertical blinds (leftover from previous owners) and they are awful.

In one window the cats have absolutely destroyed them and all the weights have ended up being ripped out. Those ones will be replaced with the day and night blinds linked to above.

In the other windows I hate them because they block way too much light when open and you can't put anything on the windowsill. We've got a high window that lets light in but faces a brick wall. I'm going to get rid of that blind and I'm thinking of getting film to frost that window. In the kitchen we'll replace it with a light filtering blind when we redo the kitchen.

Very oval blinds are awful, they don't really add anything to a room - in fact I think they take away more than they give.

But .... if your husband is completely unmovable then these wider, more floaty ones seem ok but it's how you style them with your other furnishings. I've added a pic of daylight roller blinds for contrast.

Vertical not very oval! Although very oval blinds might be better

Your husband sounds deeply unpleasant, to insist on something that distresses your partner to the point of tears, treating your opinion as worthless because you are a SAHM, letting you think you chose the floor etc when in fact you didn’t, he ‘let’ you have the floor because he liked it, you said yourself if he had not liked what you had picked you would not have had it, so basically he decides everything but let’s you think you have chosen things when actually you have no say whatsoever. Funny how something such as blinds can really highlight a persons true personality, which is as ugly as the vertical blinds.

He does sound unpleasantly controlling. Letting you think you are allowed to make some decisions but making sure there is something included that you hate so that you know who is boss.