Living Room Refresh : Our New Blinds

Hello Sunshine! We are nearing the end of our living room refresh. One of the last things I wanted to accomplish in our living room was to dress our windows with woven shades.

When we bought our house we inherited drafty windows, some of which were painted shut, lined with those thin plastic cheap blinds. We slowly and strategically replaced all our windows, getting rid of all our blinds in the process by replacing them with curtains.

For our pair of living room windows we knew we wanted natural woven roman shades to add warmth. This past year, I added pleaded linen drapes to the living room. I love their natural, flowy look. Since I love the look of my pinch pleats better with the curtains open, it was time to think about adding shades.

Choosing blinds is similar to choosing tile for a bathroom or paint colors. The task can be a bit overwhelming. My take home tip is to order samples. Start by determining what overall look you are going for, do you want woven, fabric, faux wood, etc... This makes deciding a bit easier and remember, please, order lots of different samples. You will thank me later.

To order our shades, we went with Blinds.com. They have a great website that is easy to navigate. They offer free samples and free shipping! Win, win! I ordered over ten samples of different bamboo and woven wood shades. I'm so happy I did because a few that I thought I loved I quickly ixnayed. I got the whole family involved and holding each sample up to the window we chose Hatteras Camel from Blinds.com Economy Woven Wood Line.

One thing that helped a lot was that Blinds.com offered very detailed measuring instructions that came with my sample pack. I measured several times to make sure that they were accurate. You know the whole measure twice cut once saying, it applies here as well.

I couldn't believe how fast I received my custom shades, thinking it would take a few weeks since they are cut to your precise measurements. We ultimately had to go with an outside mount, as opposed to an inside mount. I had my heart set on an inside mount but alas my windows weren't deep enough to accommodate the hardware.

The installation was easy peasy after we fully understood the directions. Using a ladder we first did a dry fit and marked the exact location for each bracket. After we screwed the brackets into place, we simply hung are shade up and instant gratification.

We love our new woven shades! They not only look great but they add that layer of warmth we so desperately wanted for our living room. I'm so glad I took the extra time out to plan for our shades and we couldn't be happier.

Now tell me, do you like our new woven wood shades? See ya soon!

This post is sponsored by blinds.com. All thoughts and opinions, as always, are 100% my own.