How do you choose blinds for a new house?

First you need to think about practical considerations like what features you want from your blinds in certain rooms, your budget, any challenges of the home or area you might need to counteract or account for, and of course, the sort of style and finish you want to achieve.

This blog post will provide some guidance to point you in the right direction when it comes to choosing new house blinds in various different scenarios.

How do you choose blinds for a new house in general terms?

If you need to buy new window blinds for literally every room in the home, this is quite a large undertaking in terms of how highly-loaded it is to get things right.

In this situation, your blinds will usually go in before your furniture (whether that’s existing furniture or things you’re going to buy new) and this can make it harder to assess and determine how things will look when it all comes together!

However, style/colour/room theme elements aside, there are a few things you need to consider in more broad and general terms when it comes to narrowing down your choices and potentially ruling some options out. These are:

• What you want your blinds to do; simply block out the light, or also filter it?
• Is your home overlooked, meaning you will need to consider blinds that allow you to enjoy the view whilst also being able to maintain your privacy?
• How modern is the house, and is it well insulated with double-glazed windows; or is choosing thermally insulating blinds going to be vital to maintaining the temperature within the home?
• Are there any challenges to contend with, such as a particularly dark room that doesn’t get much sun and so that you’ll want to ensure you don’t darken further with a blind that takes up a lot of space when open, or perhaps a room that gets too bright/hot during the day and that you need to take the edge off?
• Are the windows standard, do they open inwards or outwards, do they have protruding handles, and do you want to keep things on your windowsills?
• What sort of budget do you have to play with?
• What sort of era or theme/style does the house and your own preferences follow, and if you want to take a big picture approach, what’s the sort of tone and mood of the surrounding area and other properties either side as well?
• What sort of blinds do you actually like or dislike in terms of functions or appearance?

And so on!

Should all of the blinds in a home match?

No, and in many cases it would not be possible in practical terms to have all blinds in the home of the same type and colour. Most of us have a theme or style to an extent in each of our rooms, and sometimes, the general or wider theme and style (and even colour scheme) follows through every room of the home, but even so, having the same type and colour of blinds in every room isn’t the norm nor as I say, usually practical.

Generally, all of the blinds in any one given room would match, and possibly all of the blinds you have in hallways or open areas would match each other too. But from room to room, it’s perfectly normal to have a different type and style/colour of blind in each room.

For instance, you’d probably want waterproof blinds in the kitchen and bathroom, but may not want blinds of those same types or finishes in every room! You will also tend to have different priorities for how your blinds look and what they do in different rooms too; for instance, you may want blackout blinds in the bedroom but blinds that filter or diffuse the light in the living room.

How do you choose blinds for a new house on a limited budget?

Buying and/or moving into a new home can be exciting, but also ridiculously stressful and man, are there a lot of things to pay for that you might have grossly underestimated or not even realised were a thing at all.

So, how do you choose blinds for a new house if your budget is limited or you’re trying to keep costs down?

First of all, set said budget, and ensure it is realistic. Run some numbers to determine things like the sort of costs of different types of blinds for different sizes of windows, and get a basic understanding of the hierarchy of window blinds prices.

Also, don’t assume that a certain blind or type of blind will be well above your paygrade; calculate a couple of hypothetical windows to be sure.

Another tip as well; tempted as you may be to do things on the cheap, don’t compromise on quality by going for readymade blinds and ruin the whole effect by ending up with blinds that don’t fit and that have an unfinished appearance, and that won’t last for long anyway. Don’t compromise on function either; if you need say, a waterproof blind or a blackout blind, sure look for lower-cost options of that type, but don’t decide that in a pinch you can do without that feature altogether.

How do you choose blinds for a new house you plan to rent out?

If you’re choosing blinds for a new house that you’ve bought as a buy-to-let investment rather than to live in, your considerations when it comes to buying blinds will tend to be pretty different to those for a home you’re planning to move into yourself.

I would caution against heading down the readymade blinds route to keep costs down; this will tend to be a false economy in the medium to longer term, and you might end up needing to replace all of the blinds every couple of years through no fault of your tenants.

Good quality made to measure blinds, on the other hand, will last over a decade in daily use.

Understandably though, you might want to look for blinds towards the lower end of the price scale unless you’re buying and renting out a luxury property, with your options there being roller blinds, Venetian blinds, and vertical blinds respectively.

Be sure to choose waterproof blinds for kitchens and bathrooms; and choose neutral colours that will work with your tenant’s own tastes and/or furniture, whatever type it is, albeit steer clear of bright whites, as these will quickly show up dirt and marks.