Is the Gro Anywhere blind worth buying?

[OlivesTree]

My black out blinds are letting light in all around the sides. Was thinking of doubling up with the Gro Anywhere blind, but don't want to buy it to end up with the same problem. Does anyone have an opinion on whether they are worth buying or not? Other option is the magic blinds that stick with static- any good?

we have these. They are pretty good but we still have light coming in from the sides. We have these, a regular black out roller bind AND black out lined curtains. And its still not totally dark in there!

They are worth it if only for travelling though, we aleays take them away.

Nope. We broke our window taking it down one morning... One of the suckers was particularly well sucked against the window, we pulled and CRACK... The window broke. It was even more annoying because normally the suckers were pants and the bloody thing always fell down.

I have 2 gro anywhere blinds and they are fab. We take them whenever we go anywhere overnight and they block out all light, so the DCs sleep much better.
We have one up in our bedroom at the moment as our usual blind is broken. I probably wouldn't recommend them for permanent use though as it's a bit of a faff to keep taking them down and putting them back up every day.

The attachments/ suckers (?) are really poor. They keep coming off, I cleaned them and the window and still by the time the morning comes the whole thing is down.

We use ours for travelling and they are fab :)

We've used ours a lot for travelling, and we love it.

we got one for our holiday 2 weeks ago. It didn't quite fit the window in the cottage, its adjustable but the window was smaller than the smallest setting for the blind, but we fitted it on 3 sides & let the bottom edge hang down & it blacked the room out perfectly. suckers stayed well stuck on for the whole week. Worked a treat!

We had the same issue with dd, she likes total darkness, we tried so many different things but ended up with a blind that you velcro to the window frame, lets no light in at all, think its amazing. i think there are lots of sites that do them but we got ours from www.easyblindsonline.co.UK hope this helps

I'm with itsatrap. Have got easy blinds in my youngests room and its the only thing that stops the light coming in. The velcro sticks onto your window frame (we have pvc so it doesnt ruin it or anything) and to me it was worth it - theyve been up for about three years now - had to buy a bit of extra velcro this year as two of the sides came loose, but all fine again now.

Gro blinds are alright for travelling but annoying at home. Easy blinds (mentioned above) are absolutely brilliant, almost pitch black with them. They're really low tech but totally do the job. We got ours from amazon.

Yes an easy blind is good. You can also get them with suckers which are seperate, instead of using Velcro tape, so put them where you need then attach blind.

Then hand black out lining on the rail over the top which is quite cheap. You can get black out lining for your existing curtains or hang it straight up.

That's what we do. The velcro looks quite hard to get off a painted wooden frame but should be ok on PVC (I have the Velcro too)

Actually I've just re read - as you've already got a black out blind, just buy some cheap black out liner curtains and hang in front of existing blind and use masking tape to stick down the existing blind.

The easy blind isn't enough on its own! So don't waste your money without trying lining over the top first.

we have pvc window frames, and I think I could probably pull off the velcro without any damage, but there might be annoying bits of sticky left behind that would need scrubbing off. If frames are wooden I wouldnt recommend it.

The velcro strips you stick on the frame have the 'hooks' on them and are rough to the touch - about 1 inch wide. The fabric has one smooth side, and the other side is 'fluffy' - kind of like felt - this is what grips to the strip. when you press it down it completely blocks out any light.

We've used the Gro Anywhere blinds for a while at home and they can be good but they can also be a nuisance - we cracked a window pane putting it back up. Also we've found that the suckers can be a bit distorted meaning that individual ones vary a lot in how well they stick - some stick well and some don't stick at all. We've since moved house and the new place has a velux with inbuilt blackout blind, which works much better!

The easy blind is definitely enough on its own for us, but we have the Velcro ones. I think this makes all the difference over suckers as there's no gaps at all.

To answer the question about removal, I think it would be fine on upvc. I'm expecting maybe slight stickiness when we remove ours but nothing that a little alcohol wouldn't clean off. Painted windows might be damaged though.

I have the Velcro one too - when the sun is bright, it isn't quite enough (drives me mad). We do have very tall windows which makes it harder to get a good seal.

Thanks everyone for the tips. I think I am going to try the easy blind. So glad I didn't just go ahead and buy the gro anywhere. Sounds like far too much faff for me!

Hi Olives,

How did you get on with the easyblackout?