Your blinds play an important role in the interior design of your home. When you have aesthetically pleasing blinds, they make your home look clean and refreshed. There are also various kinds of blinds you can choose to accentuate your home’s style.
But, along with how the blinds look, they are also a critical component of keeping your home temperature controlled and comfortable. You want to have blinds that protect your home or apartment from the sun and that maintain your privacy from neighbors or anyone outside.
How To Use Your Blinds The Correct Way
While it’s true that blinds are crucial window treatments, you may not think about them that often until you have an issue. However, when you move into a new place or get new blinds, you may have questions about how the blinds operate as different kinds of blinds use different mechanisms.
In this guide from Arizona Blinds Company, you’ll learn some of the most common types of blinds and how to use them, including how to lower the blinds, open the blinds, and more.
Why Learning How To Operate Your Blinds Is Important
As mentioned above, your blinds perform many essential functions. So, you want to learn how to use them to ensure you get the following advantages:
- Light control: Most blinds can open and shut fully, whether they are vertical blinds or horizontal blinds. The individual slats on the blinds can also be adjusted to let in more or less light. So, knowing how to use your window treatment blinds correctly ensures you get the right level of light you want in each room.
- Regulated temperatures: Whether they are cordless blinds, cellular shades, or any other kind of blind, these window treatments regulate indoor temperatures. If you want your rooms to be warmer, you should keep the blinds open. If you want the warmth to be cooler, you should close the blinds.
- Increased privacy: When your blinds are shut, people outside of your home or apartment can’t see you. So, I want to ensure you can close them fully.
Now that you know the vital functions of blinds, let’s look at the various kinds of blinds and how to use them.
Common Types Of Blinds & How To Use Them
There are many types of blinds, but they can mostly be placed into a few overall categories. These categories are single-corded blinds, continuous cord blinds, blinds with rods, and cordless blinds.
Single corded blinds:
There are many kinds of single-stringed blinds. In fact, they are one of the most common window blinds. Some examples of this category include Venetian blinds and pleated shades. Singled corded blinds are horizontal blinds.
While they are one of the most common options for window blinds, they are also one of the more complicated to use.
Here are the steps to opening and closing single-corded blinds:
- Unlock them by grabbing the cord and pulling it to the left.
- Then, you will either pull on the string or release the string downward, depending on if you’re trying to open the blinds or close them.
- Make sure to keep a firm hold on the string to keep the cord lock mechanism from activating.
- Finally, pull the cords to the right to lock them again.
Continuous cord blinds:
These blinds are another common window treatment. These blinds use a continuous string loop to both open and shut the blinds. Blinds that can have continuous cord systems include cellular blinds and Roman shades.
The first step to opening these blinds is to see which side of the cord will shut the blinds. You can do this by pulling one side of the continuous cord and seeing how the blinds move. From there, you will pull on one side of the continuous cord to either lower or raise the blinds.
Blinds with rods:
Blinds with rods are easy to control as they have a rod and track system instead of the cords. Blinds with rods are usually vertical blinds or panel blinds.
All you need to do is pull the blind open to let more light in or pull the rod shut to let in less light.
Usually, you can twist the rod to move the slats open or shut. You’ll want to ensure they are in a flat position before completely opening the blind, otherwise they can get messed up.
Cordless blinds are desirable for many homeowners because they are so easy to use. If you have cordless blinds, you won’t have to deal with any cords or strings. All you need to do is grab the bottom bar on the blind and pull it down to lower the blinds. Then, you can gently pull the same bar to open the blind.
How To Move Blinds For Light Control
Knowing how hot to fully open and close the blinds is key, but you also want to know how to let light in using the blind slats.
In some cases, you just want to let a little bit of light into a room, so you don’t want to fullu open or shut these window treatments. So, when determining how much light yoru blinds should let in, make sure you know how to move the slats.
Here’s how to let in natural light depending on the type of blind you have:
- Single cord blinds: For most single cord blinds, you can use the rod that is seperate from the cord system to move the slats.
- Continuous cord blinds: Many continuous. cord blinds are a type of shade, so they don’t have individual slats that can open and close. This means you’ll get less light control with this option.
- Blinds with rods: For these blinds, you will just adjust the same rod you use to close or open the blinds. However, you will instead turn the wand counterclockwise or clockwise.
- Cordless blinds: For cordless blinds, which are often made of wood, you’ll pull the device up or down to slightly open the slats.
Find The Right Blinds For Your Living Space
At Arizona Blinds Company, we provide comprehensive services, including product selection, customization, installation, and repairs. If you have questions about how to use your blinds or need to get an upgrade, set up a free consultation today.