Our bedroom faces west on the second floor of our house (so now you know where to throw rocks to get our attention, shine lights to annoy us, etc.). It has nothing to shade it from the killer hot sun in the summer that beats down on the roof, wall, and windows. All of these things, plus the fact that heat rises, makes our bedroom the hottest room in the house. While it might be 81F in the rest of the house, you can be assured that our room is about 83-85F during the day. Since we moved into the house 6+ years ago, summer time sleeping consists of about one sheet, super thin PJs, and nothing else. Heck, that about sums it up for the winter too!
I figured that we were losing a lot of energy through our windows because they are super duper thin, cheap pieces of crap that came standard with the house. I would love to update this to triple pane, but that's a whole other story. In any case, the blinds on the windows are the cheap metal blinds that hardly even block light, and they too were the original ones put in the house 20+ years ago. When we first moved in, I got energy-efficient curtains, which are essentially curtains backed with this material that prevents heat from getting through and keeps the room fairly dark. Love them, but I'm sure there are better things out there.
While the girls were away this past week, I went to Home Depot and put down the cash to get cellular blinds. I was super hesitant to do it because they were almost 75% more than the faux wood blinds I was planning to get, but was convinced by all the statistics on it and the helpful associate. They are cord free, energy efficient, completely light blocking, easy to install, and last just as long as regular blinds though they're made from "fabric" (I'm sure it's something super fancy). Bit the bullet, bought them, and finally got around to installing them today.
These shades are PHENOMENAL. I can't say enough good things about them. They were super easy to put up, go up and down to wherever you want without tugging on something or fighting with a cord/stick, and are eerily light blocking. I thought our curtain/blind combination before did a good job, but now? NOTHING gets through. It's so dark! I can put in light-colored curtains now and not worry about light getting through! The difference in temperature by them is stunning too - with the metal blinds, I could put my hand up by them and definitely feel some serious heat coming through. With these? I put my hand up by them and feel...nothing. It's the same temperature as the inside of our bedroom! Hurrah!
I may have to save up and invest in a few more of these, like for the girls' bedrooms. What a great piece of technology to have in our windows now!
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