As with most aspects of décor these days, when you’re shopping for blinds you’ll notice that there are so many options available to you. While having options is usually a good thing, but with the amount of types of blinds you can choose from, it can be hard to know what choice to make and what blind is right for you and your home!
So, to help clear up any confusion and help get you on the right track when it comes to window blinds, we spoke to DotcomBlinds, one of the UK’s biggest blinds retailers to get the low down on all the different types of window blind you’ll see on the market!
Roller Blinds
Roller blinds are probably the most common type of blinds that you’ll see in homes, the popularity of roller blinds can be attributed to their simplistic and easy to use design. Roller blinds are made up of a long sheet of fabric, which is connected to a barrel, this barrel can be rotated to pull up or drop down the blind fabric to cover or uncover your window.
These blinds are also very versatile, they can be made in a myriad of fabrics meaning there’s always a perfect roller blind for your window no matter what room it’s in. There are also a whole host of control mechanisms that can be used on roller blinds, from the classic chain system that you probably imagine when you think of roller blinds, to newer types which can be operated by remote control.
Roman Blinds
Roman blinds are a less common blind than roller blinds, but they have a lot more history to them. Roman blinds reportedly date back to the construction of the Colosseum in ancient Rome, as people hung sheets of fabric in their windows to keep debris and dust out of their home, of course modern Roman blinds are a bit more advanced than what they used in ancient Rome thanks to advances in technology over the past thousand or so years.
These blinds are commonly made of soft textiles like cotton, silk, and linen. That fabric then has strings laced through it, which connect to the fabric at pleats, so the blind can be pulled up by pulling the strings tighter or dropped by loosening some of the tension from the strings. Roman blinds usually work best in bedrooms, living rooms and hallways, but not in kitchens or bathrooms as the textiles used in Roman blinds can often stain easily or succumb to water damage.
Vertical Blinds
Vertical blinds are a type of blind, which is made up of multiple slats or louvres of material, which hang down from a horizontal headrail. The slats on these blinds are usually connected at the bottom of the slats, meaning when one moves, so do the others. Vertical blinds can be operated either by moving the slats side to side to open and close the blinds or rotating the slats to let more or less light into the room.
While vertical blinds are more common in commercial buildings like offices, they’re growing more popular for use at home. A big driving force behind their newfound popularity is cost, as vertical blinds are one of the cheaper types of blinds available on the market, which makes them very appealing to homeowners on a tight budget.
Venetian Blinds
Venetian blinds are another type of blind with a along storied history, these blinds got their name as they were sold by merchants in ancient Venice, but these blinds actually originate from the Middle East. These blinds have a simple design, multiple horizontal slats of materials, which are connected by strings and attached to a headrail, where you can pull the strings to raise the slats, or rotate the slats to let more light in.
Venetian blinds can be made in a lot of materials, but most commonly the slats are made from wood, plastic or metal. Wooden slats tend to be the heaviest and most expensive, metal slats are usually the cheapest and most lightweight, and plastic slats are usually in the middle of both weight and cost.
Click Fit Blinds
Click fit blinds are a newer type of blinds which haven’t been around for all that long, but these blinds have a very modern design that makes them very easy to install. While other types of blinds need to be drilled in place, these blinds can be installed with minimal DIY skills as they can just click into window frames, thus the name ‘click-fit’.
These ‘click-fit’ blinds are often used in conservatories and on bi-fold doors, as they can fit right onto the window frame and not need to be installed directly onto a wall, which is tricky on patio doors and conservatories alike!
