Type of blinds in a new home and quotations

[srock]

Hi All,

We have recently bought a 5 bedroom new home from a well-renowned builder in the outskirts of London. We are very confused about the selection of blinds for our windows and would really appreciate your opinion and expertise on this:

The layout of the property is :

1. Ground Floor:

- Double bedroom with bay windows - Lounge/Living Room with bay windows - Open plan kitchen with the family/living area with french double doors opening into a south facing garden - Utility room with another entry into the garden

1. First Floor

- Master Bedroom with garden facing windows - Second double bedroom with garden facing windows - Kids room with street facing windows - Study/office room with street facing windows - Hallway with a street facing window

We recently met few local blind fitting guys and they are all suggesting us to go for horizontal Venetian wooden blinds for all windows in the house and vertical Venetian blinds for double doors. We have received quotations of £3,000 to £3,500 for material and fitting for all windows in the house. We think it is a bit too much but have no expertise in this area. There are a total of 24 windows in the house.

We buy from Blinds2Go and then get our handyman in to fit them. You measure up yourself (they have excellent guides to get this right), order online and they send them out by courier. They're significantly cheaper than other companies and have excellent customer service.

Don’t go for the same blinds in every room!!! Very boring. What about the individual character and design for each room. Just get the bathrooms done.

Don’t have vertical blinds. They make a house look like an office.

Why would you not want fabric blinds for the lounge? Or even curtains in a room or two? The suggestions you have been given are very functional but not remotely inspiring. Have a look in some magazines or Houzz for better ideas. The suggestions are very old fashioned too! No flair!

We also buy from Blinds2Go and DH fits them, he's very handy. For 9 windows in our new build it comes to £550

Blinds2go are fantastic. So reasonable as well. I’m very pleased with my purchases from them.
Light grey wide slatted wooden blinds for my kitchen and Roman blinds for the study. Roller blinds in my bathroom and sons bedroom.
Highly recommended.

Thank you all for your suggestions.

Don't get Venetian blinds and definitely not vertical blinds. Fabric is nicer. Unless drafts are an issue, which I wouldn't expect in a new house, I wouldn't have anything on the french windows at all.

How are you decorating the rooms? That will surely dictate how you want to dress the windows.

Not sure of style if house but have you considered shutters?

We have wide slatted wooden blinds from blinds2go with ribbon tapes instead of string. We will eventually replace them with shutters but couldn’t afford them yet!

We got a bendable curtain poles from Dunelm mill for our bay windows.

I have wide slatted wooden Venetian in most rooms, we are overlooked at the front so the blinds give privacy without losing too much light.
We also have south facing patio doors and have had voile curtains made from Dunelm as we need some shade from the afternoon sun at times.
We also have full length curtains in the bedrooms as well as blinds, I like it very dark!
If you've had quotes in your home they can be very high priced. Try going to a local blinds shop, or even Dunelm, to get more prices for made to measure.
I agree with others, don't have vertical blinds. Sooo officy!

Like this

We used Blinds2Go too and they're fab. We have a box bay window and had a professional blind fitter in as we didn't know how to hang it. The very expensive blind he fitted turned out to be exactly the same as the ones we later got from blinds2go. We've got Venetians all downstairs, including the box bay, as we are overlooked st the front so wanted the privacy, and the back is west facing and the sunlight is blinding on summer evenings so I wanted to be able to close them at varying degrees but not be in pitch darkness as you would with a fabric blind. I think you need to figure this out in your new house before making a choice. I love the look of roman blinds but they wouldn't have worked for us.
We've had dunelm blinds and they are very heavy, so if your new home has plasterboard walls and window recesses this is something to bear in mind. We rented a modern house where the walls turned to mush when you tried to put a rawl plug in!

Another vote for Blinds2go. We have used them several times, fantastic service. We have two huge picture windows, they made Venetian blinds to fit. They were Blinds2go’s largest size. 8 years on still fantastic.

I would suggest taking your time. Focus first on the bedrooms as that is where you actually need blinds or curtains in order to live there. Then move in and take time to consider what you really want elsewhere.

I would not put Venetians in bedrooms personally, they aren’t brilliant at blocking noise or light or keeping in heat and don’t add cosiness in winter.

Roman blinds (fully blackout lined) would be my choice for a modern house, or blackout lined curtains with a modern heading (eg eyelet). Ready made blackout curtains are available from various places online (eg dunelm, John Lewis, Next).

For the kids room you might want to consider a 100% blackout solution like BlocOut especially if their room has a street light outside.