Blackout blinds - would cheapish ones work?

[eugenefitzherbert]

We are in a rented house and it is ridiculously bright. There are cream blinds on the windows and cotton curtains but still too much light coming in.

Does anyone know if cheap blinds are pointless? Don't want to spend a lot as we hope to move in the next year.

I bought an expensive set of blackout blinds from John Lewis but found that loads of light still seeped in round the edge. Recently, I've bought blackout fabric for my daughter's room that is fastened by velcro round the edge of the window. It's fairly cheap and works brilliantly. Can't remember the name of the company but I'm sure something similar will come up if you google it.

I bought blackout curtain linings for DD's room on eBay. They were really cheap but they work perfectly well.they hook onto your curtains easily. Just make sure they are longer than the window by a decent margin so that light doesn't seep in at the bottom.

I have blackout blinds from Dunelm Mill, they block out lots but since you fit them yourself you have to be good at accurate cutting. One of our two sets is fitted much better than the other, but for £20 it's worth a go.

Same as Earwiggo we have the Dunelm roller blind which is good. Then in the other bedroom we have the Dunelm blackout curtain liners which are also pretty good.

Go with both for total blackout

ikea does good blackout blinds, it's a question of measurements though.
in the summer we use a thick terry-type duvet cover to use in addition to the light cotton curtains we have in our bedroom. much better.

I think they are a bit hit and miss, ive known people but cheap ones and they have been great but then others say they were useless and have asked me to make some.

Ive heard good feedback on ikea ones too :)

I've bought cheap ikea ones & they are fine, as are dunelm mill. The light does seep in around the edges, but we also have blackout linings (I think from Argos) attached to the curtains. I'm obsessed with blackout stuff & if i stay at other peoples houses who don't have them, I take an eye mask !

I have blackout roller blinds, made to measure from www.blinds-2go.co.uk of course there is always a small amount of light coming through the sides as they are roller blinds. You can peg or hook in ready made blackout curtain linings to the existing curtains.

For travelling we have those baa baa travel blinds that suction to the window. Not perfect black out but very good at darkening a room.

If you don't think you'll be in your current house for long, or if you want to check that having blinds will make a difference to howwell DC sleep, just use aluminium foil blutacked to the windows. Makes the room black as pitch.

Thanks everyone.

Still not sure what to go for - the blackout lining sounds good but one set of cutains is tab topped so not sure if it will work on those. I've seen some lining on ebay so must measure the window and I'll get it for one window if it is the right size.

Will check out Argos/Ikea for blinds.

I like the idea of the foil Astrophe. I got DH to put large pieces of heavy cardboard from old boxes we had in the attic up and they helped a bit but they weren't big enough to block the whole window.

Readymade blinds can still be great quality, I've had some from www.orderblinds.co.uk before and was really impressed. They even trim them to width for you so you don't need to mess around when they arrive.

IKEA or DUNELM are good and reasonable too.

IKEA! roughly about £20 depending on size and they can be cut down too.

sew the linings into tab top curtains. A curtain/ blind combo will get you a lie in :)