What are day night blinds?

What are day night blinds (or “day and night” blinds, for those who Grammar)?

They’re a special type of roller blind with a double layer of fabric that goes up both the front and back of a roller tube, and which is comprised of alternating stripes of a solid, opaque colour with a more sheer or transparent area. They’re actually made using one piece of fabric which loops around from the tube at the top, under the bottom bar and back up to the top, giving the appearance of two layers of fabric.

As you roll the blind up or down the fabric on both the front and back of the tube moves, causing the stripes to align in different formations; a solid block of the opaque colour, alternating stripes of the opaque and sheer, or somewhere in between.

That’s a basic explanation of what day and night blinds do and how they work; and day and night blinds also go by a few other names too, depending on who is selling them. You might alternatively hear day and night blinds called zebra blinds, vision blinds, mirage blinds, duo roller blinds, or “night and day” blinds, because some folk just like to eat their dessert before their main course.

Day and night roller blinds offer all of the simplicity of a regular roller blind with the same flexibility in terms of privacy and light control as a Venetian blind.

Also, let’s not lose sight of the fact that the day and night blind’s zebra stripes look incredibly cool as well.

This blog post will explain in a little more detail what day and night blinds or zebra blinds are, and how they work.

What are day and night blinds? Are they roller blinds?

Day and night blinds and roller blinds are sisters, not twins. The key functional difference between them is that roller blind fabric rolls up and down around its tube just one way, like kitchen roll.

Day and night blinds or zebra blinds are double layered and roll right round in a continuous loop, like those old-style fabric towel hand dryers that you don’t see any more for reasons that I frankly don’t want you wrongly associating with our finest new innovation in blinds.

What do day and night blinds look like?

The main visual takeaway of day and night blinds is their horizontal stripes, and these aren’t just contrasting colours but actually different fabrics, one being solid and the other sheer. As the fabric is double layered (going up the front and the back of the blind respectively) you can adjust the blind when it’s lowered (or partially lowered) to finesse the alignment of the stripes.

Why are day and night blinds striped?

The stripes of your day and night blind mean firstly, that you can call them zebra blinds because that’s cool. It also means that you can either align them in a solid block of opaque fabric, which blocks the light (and prying eyes) entirely in blackout options; or half-and-half it (or any other ratio you like) to diffuse or filter light and stop all but the most determined of “nose to the glass” beaky types from seeing in.

This probably doesn’t really warrant a direct mention but for the sake of clarity, you can also raise or lower day and night blinds fully or partially like any other roller blind too; but with the flexibility of Venetian blinds (those aluminium, wood, or faux-wood blinds comprised of horizontal slats).

What are the benefits of day and night blinds?

• Day and night blinds or zebra blinds give you lots of options on privacy and light control by means of positioning the stripey bits in varying positions.
• If you think of the stripes in terms of being like net curtains in the sheer parts and like a solid blind or curtain in the opaque parts, you get the best of both worlds, or get to have your cake and eat it too.
• Line up the opaque or solid stripes front and back and it’s a sheer block of colour to shut out light and nosey gits. Line up the sheer stripes, and you get lots of light and also a clear view of the outside world, while also making it harder for people to peer in without really being deliberate about it.
• In case it’s not obvious, BTW, you roll day and night blinds up and down and control the stripes using a sidewinder chain.
• Day and night blinds are a good pick for sunny rooms, or rooms that are very overlooked. You can get them in full blackout fabrics as well as dimout options (the standard option).
• Across our day and night blinds or zebra blinds ranges, there are a number of options for the sheer part of the fabric too, including those that look finer than a spider’s web and you can barely see at all, to those that look a lot like a very fine net.

If you want to know more or my explanation of how zebra blinds work isn’t really translating into a clear mental image for you, drop me a line and I’ll try to help.