Window Blinds

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Esther
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Window Blinds

Post by Esther »

We are currently in the process of purchasing a cottage in a Retirement/Personal care facility. It is our responsibility to provide the window treatments. The cottage does have many windows (roughly 15). We do need privacy and I was looking at horizontal (slated)blinds and perhaps verticals. I have Hunter Douglas in my present home but feel I do not want to spend that amount of money. I was considering using Lowes or Home Depot for Levolor or Bali but a bit concerned about installation. I also am considering contacting Budget Blinds. I did look at Penny's but was not too impressed. I don't need "top of the line" but merely a blind with a good working mechanism (nothing motorized). Any suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated.
RDB
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Re: Window Blinds

Post by RDB »

We have BALI white wood blinds. Bought during a big sale at JC Penney. I think they are really nice, they look and function great. I am not sure if there is any difference between Levolor and Bali from Home Depot/Lowes vs. JCP? We did all the measuring and installation ourselves and it was a breeze. We have a ton of huge windows. We did upgrade a few items: No holes, larger valance, etc. I know Budget Blinds will come to your house for a no cost consult.
Jamieson22
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Re: Window Blinds

Post by Jamieson22 »

We are having blinds for our new house installed Friday through Lowes. 24 windows.

We first priced from Costco and met with a Graber rep in our home.

We then priced Graber through Lowes.

All in, Lowes was > $1600 cheaper that Costco ($5800 vs $4200 including tax/install). On top of that price difference, we also "upgraded" several of the choices from the Costco quote so we saved even more than reflected in the $ savings.

Lowes always seems to have 20% off each brand, plus you get an additional 10% "Pro" discount if you order > 10 blinds. I also used one of the 10% off coupons we got in mail after moving to save even more.

We went with a mix of cellular shades, 2" fauxwood, pleated shades and roller shades.
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BarbaricYawp
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Re: Window Blinds

Post by BarbaricYawp »

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mhc
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Re: Window Blinds

Post by mhc »

I recently did 6 windows with blinds.com

The quality is not as good as with my Hunter Douglas blinds, but the price is much lower. I had an issue with one of the blinds. I called blinds.com and within 1 minute of talking with the rep, she said a new blind would be sent to my house at no additional charge. I was really impressed with the customer service. The phone call was less than 5 minutes.

Installing blinds is really easy. If you are not able to do it, you could order the blinds and then hire a handy man or family member to do it.
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emilyinsf
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Re: Window Blinds

Post by emilyinsf »

We have Bali honeycomb blinds. We got most of them through Lowes and a few through the cheapest internet seller I could find. They are exactly the same. Lowes installed most, and I installed those that we bought online. It was very easy. You do need a bigger drill bit than the one recommended on the guide, but it's not hard to figure out which one by comparing the screws to the bits. We've had them for three years, and they have all held up nicely.
bnes
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Re: Window Blinds

Post by bnes »

I did 6 blinds with "hotblinds", and was satisfied.

There are lots and lots of options, for example:
  • Cordless: the cord goes inside the blind, you grab the actual shade to move it up or down.
  • Top up top down: you can open it top down for privacy with light.
[*] Room darkening: actual honeycomb shade has a foil lining which reflects heat and essentially all the light.
The major determinate of what works for you may well be how "deep" your window frames are. The cordless models for example require about 2.5 inches,
where corded models need as little as 1.25 inches. Also important is to determine how much an open blind will block your view out the window. The size of
a closed blind is called the "stack".

Know that there are a small number of actual blind fabricators, and a much larger number of resellers. If you can figure out who makes each blind, you can shop by price. Else shop by level of service (with Home Depot probably at the bottom). Most of the online vendors send the order to the factory, and the factory drop ships the completed blind to you.

I made a list of online retailers over at:
http://guides.obviously.com/Online-Wind ... Shops/1039
Last edited by bnes on Thu Sep 04, 2014 1:11 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Epsilon Delta
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Re: Window Blinds

Post by Epsilon Delta »

mhc wrote: Installing blinds is really easy. If you are not able to do it, you could order the blinds and then hire a handy man or family member to do it.
I agree it's very easy to DIY, but if you go the handy man route you may want to get the handy man before ordering. In my experience measuring correctly can be harder than putting in screws. :?

I've had better luck getting blinds cut to length mail order than at local stores. I assume the person who fills the mail order cuts blinds all day long and knows the tricks, while the associate at the local store is out of practice and sometimes makes a messy cut. The local store made it right, but I don't like to be part of their quality control.

It's also worth looking at the controls. Apparently the cords were blamed for child strangulation. Most modern blinds have some sort of countermeasure. Some of these make it difficult if you have limited dexterity. Breakaway cords sometimes breakaway a little too easily and the twist rods require fine motor skills. My grandmothers blinds had what looked like tennis balls on the cords for easy grasping. That wouldn't work well with my current blinds.
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Epsilon Delta
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Re: Window Blinds

Post by Epsilon Delta »

bnes wrote: Also important is to determine how much an open blind will block your view out the window. The size of
a closed blind is called the "stack".
Most blinds come in only a few fixed lengths. For mid and low range blinds the length is rarely customized so you often end up using a 72in long blind for say a 58in window. It is fairly easy, though tedious, to remove the bottom slats or cut a honeycomb blind down to get rid of the extra length. This can reduce the stack by an inch or two and give a cleaner look. Many instructions do not describe how to do this, so you have to work it out by yourself.
dolphinsaremammals
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Re: Window Blinds

Post by dolphinsaremammals »

Epsilon Delta wrote: It's also worth looking at the controls. Apparently the cords were blamed for child strangulation. Most modern blinds have some sort of countermeasure. Some of these make it difficult if you have limited dexterity. Breakaway cords sometimes breakaway a little too easily and the twist rods require fine motor skills. My grandmothers blinds had what looked like tennis balls on the cords for easy grasping. That wouldn't work well with my current blinds.
I just cut the bottom of the loop so nothing can get caught in it, I assume.

One thing I don't like about blinds is that bright light seems to be able to get through the gaps between the slats in the lower half of the blinds. This has been true of every type of horizontal blinds I've seen.
davebo
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Re: Window Blinds

Post by davebo »

I like the honeycomb blinds as well, I think we have levolor blinds in all the bedrooms and the addition we built. They are easy to operate (just move up/down with your hands) and do a nice job.
bnes
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Re: Window Blinds

Post by bnes »

Epsilon Delta wrote:
bnes wrote: Also important is to determine how much an open blind will block your view out the window. The size of a closed blind is called the "stack".
Most blinds come in only a few fixed lengths. For mid and low range blinds the length is rarely customized so you often end up using a 72in long blind for say a 58in window. It is fairly easy, though tedious, to remove the bottom slats or cut a honeycomb blind down to get rid of the extra length. This can reduce the stack by an inch or two and give a cleaner look. Many instructions do not describe how to do this, so you have to work it out by yourself.
If you get home depot's off the shelf blinds, then yes they are trimmed to size and you have the problem.

If your job goes to a factory however, I think it's different. The low end blinds I got were clearly built at the right size.
The factory does not want to send out extra fabric: that costs money.

Should you get excess stack, it's really easy to trim, as you note. The honeycomb are particularly easy: just pop one end cap out, slide the bottom rail off, trim, and reassemble.

The places I called (listed at http://obviously.com/1039/Online-Window ... lind-Shops ) all were able tell me the expected stack height, given a window dimension.
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LadyGeek
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Re: Window Blinds

Post by LadyGeek »

This thread is now in the Personal Consumer Issues forum (window blinds).
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DireWolf
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Re: Window Blinds

Post by DireWolf »

We have Graber pleated shades from Budget Blinds and highly recommend both the shades and the store.
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gunn_show
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Re: Window Blinds

Post by gunn_show »

davebo wrote:I like the honeycomb blinds as well, I think we have levolor blinds in all the bedrooms and the addition we built. They are easy to operate (just move up/down with your hands) and do a nice job.
+1 for Levolor from Home Depot. 2x cellular for the basement/office, and 2x 2" real wood, all the cordless type. Not cheap, but HD had a 15% sale on Levolor, and all 4 of the ones I outfitted were huge 80-95" bay windows, so they were custom and probably way more than just standard room windows. So far so good, seem very high quality. The cellular are really quality light blockers, if you want to black out a room(s).
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gabriel1970
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Re: Window Blinds

Post by gabriel1970 »

Installation takes some work. Mainly drilling nail holes in proper location.

I used levolor 1 inch vinyl from Lowes. It did not work out at all. They close in only one direction and do not close properly. I also used some Bali 2 inch faux wood. Those turned out to be too heavy and do not operate smoothly.

Finally I bought Project Source 1 inch aluminum from Home Depot. They worked out well.

Make sure you do not use blinds with metal frame in bath rooms with shower. The metal frame is not aluminum. It rusts through paint.
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