Room darkening blinds

Collapse
This topic is closed.
X
X
 
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts
  • Lex
    Moderator Emeritus
    • Apr 2001
    • 27461

    Room darkening blinds

    Yesterday I picked up some Levolor "Cellular" blinds. I'm not going to call them mini blinds, because that would imply they have blades. I suppose from a distance, you might think they were mini blinds, but in reality, they are sort of an accordian like composite paperish material on the exterior. The kicker is, the "Room darkening" models have a layer of aluminum foil sandwiched between the exterior outter material, and the interior outter material. 72" long is standard length, various width sizes with on the spot cutting to fit your interior dimensions of your windows. The machine automatically takes off 3/8" to allow the blinds some wiggle room in the frame. So, don't give them a measurement leaving a 1/4" on both sides or something, as you will be upset when they are cut to short.

    Installation isn't bad, 2 brackets, and slap them in. It will be best if you have a small window header to fasten to. They aren't really designed for above and over mount.

    Now to the results?

    I was previously using light filtering vertical blinds. the problem was, in my room, with my RPTV facing the window, while viewing during the day, you would see the entire window in the reflective RPTV cover. Sure, I guess I could have removed the cover, and been "Better", but still the lighting was to extreme during the day anyway.

    There is edge lighting that still comes in so the room isn't completely dark, but even with some indirect lighting from other room openings, front door, the lighting during the day has been reduced by a good 75% even with one of the blinds cracked open 3" at the bottom. (keep in mind, my windows are 72" long! I have 4 windows, 2 with interior dimension of 30", and 2 with interior width of 22". The cost for all 4 windows at Lowes was 140.00 custom cut to my width.

    Unfortunately, not many "stock" colors are available, like white and beige. I simply went with alibaster, (beige), but in the room in daylight, they appear much darker unless you throw front light on them.

    The UPC code on a 31" blind titled "Custom Size Now by Levolor Cellular Shades" is 2708883402.

    Perhaps they will assist you with your lighting problems.

    The only caveate, is, they are a little sensitive to bends and mashing them I would guess, since they are fairly delicate material. But they do have some resiliance, so just take reasonable care of them, and they should be fine.

    Oh yeah, even with the peripheral light around the blinds, there's ZERO reflection on my RPTV screen now. I guess since it's not direct lighting, it doesn't cause a problem. Happy camper.

    Lex




    Cable Guy DVD Collection
    Doug
    "I'm out there Jerry, and I'm loving every minute of it!" - Kramer
  • I'mListening
    Member
    • Jul 2003
    • 63

    #2
    Lex,

    The Cellular Shades are great and quite durable. Being a night shift worker at the hospital, I have used these types of shades for many years. If measured and fitted correctly they do a great job of "room darkening".

    If you need a larger selection of styles and colors you can purchase through www.americanblinds.com This is where we bought all our shades and blinds when we built our house six years ago. Awesome service....and cheep prices! They will send you a sample kit via snail mail of various colors, styles and textures. I highly recommend their online ordering service!




    Thanks for reading!

    Enter The Cyberdyne Cinema

    Darren
    Thanks for reading!

    Enter The Cyberdyne Cinema

    Darren

    Comment

    • Lex
      Moderator Emeritus
      • Apr 2001
      • 27461

      #3
      Thanks for the tip Darren. But you might want to check their rates on cellular again, lol. The rates I checked for a 22 X 72" cellular Levolor were like 84.16 a piece for what I think was a comparable product. and 98.00 for my 30".

      So, through them it would have been close to 400 for any color I wanted they had vs 140 including taxes locally for the alibaster. Since they both darken basically the same, and alibaster worked for me color wise, I'll take the 260 savings.

      I noticed duofold shades were even higher. I am not sure if that's same color both sides, or if that's the acordian style. Anyway, I can certainly see the benefit of web shopping with comparable custom rates to Lowes. But I imagine the off the shelf pricing is likely reserved for Lowes, HD, etc...

      Lex
      Doug
      "I'm out there Jerry, and I'm loving every minute of it!" - Kramer

      Comment

      • I'mListening
        Member
        • Jul 2003
        • 63

        #4
        WHEW!!!! THAT's WHATTA CALL INFLATION!!!

        That was almost seven years ago when I used AmericanBlinds....man, things change! I remember my Levolors through them were a significant savings, we also purchased plain ol' "no name brand" miniblinds through them that were extremely inexpensive. At that time we had no Lowe's in KC, and HomeDepot was just getting into cutting custom sized blinds. Don't cha just love HD and Lowe's! My new Lowe's is just three blocks away and I have two HD's two miles away.




        Thanks for reading!

        Enter The Cyberdyne Cinema

        Darren
        Thanks for reading!

        Enter The Cyberdyne Cinema

        Darren

        Comment

        Working...
        😀
        😂
        🥰
        😘
        🤢
        😎
        😞
        😡
        👍
        👎
        Searching...Please wait.
        An unexpected error was returned: 'Your submission could not be processed because you have logged in since the previous page was loaded.

        Please push the back button and reload the previous window.'
        An unexpected error was returned: 'Your submission could not be processed because the token has expired.

        Please push the back button and reload the previous window.'
        An internal error has occurred and the module cannot be displayed.
        There are no results that meet this criteria.
        Search Result for "|||"