Do wooden blinds make a room dark?

Yes, wooden blinds make a room dark, but they do still tend to let some ambient light in from outside too. How much light makes it through and the effect it has on the room depends on how the blind is hung, the slats/construction of the blind itself, how bright it is outside, and even what colour your walls are!

If you are trying to get the specifics of how dark you might be able to get your room with wooden blinds (or on the flipside, if you’re concerned that wooden blinds might darken your room more than you’d like during the day) this blog post will cover various questions and scenarios about wooden blinds and light.

Do wooden blinds make a room dark in the same way that a blackout blind does?

No, a wooden blind can’t correctly be referred to/used as a blackout blind. This is because the joins between the slats of a wooden blind will allow a certain amount of diffuse light to pass through them, even when they’re fully closed and lying flush.

Also, there are tiny holes in the slats of wooden blinds for the lift cord mechanism, which is used to open and close the blind, to pass through. These really are only the size of pinheads, but still allow light through nonetheless.

A wooden blind is correctly referred to as a “dimout” blind, rather than a blackout blind.

Do wooden blinds make a room darker with ladder tapes or with lift cords?

Wooden blinds can be made with lift cords only, or with decorative ladder tapes over the top of these. Functionally, a blind works just the same with ladder tapes as with just lift cords, and whether you choose to have ladder tapes or not is down to personal preference and the appearance that you prefer.

However, a blind that does have ladder tapes will let less light into the room and allow the room to remain darker than one with lift cords alone, as the ladder tapes cover the little holes in the slats that the lift cords pass through.

Even so, the blind still won’t achieve a full blackout, as some light will still filter in between the slats.

Do wooden blinds make a room dark during the day if you close it and angle the slats for privacy?

If you’re asking about how dark wooden blinds can make a room because you want to preserve the light coming in rather than stopping it, you may be wondering if wooden blinds will darken a room during the day if you angle the slats to provide some privacy rather than closing the blind and slats fully to deliberately darken the room.

The answer here is yes, and the degree to which the room is made darker depends on how acutely you angle the slats. If you close the blind but angle the slats horizontally so that the view of inside from outside is disrupted but still visible to someone close by, your room will darken to an extent (which might be exactly what you want in order to reduce glare too) but will still retain a reasonable level of light.

However, if you angle the slats so that it would be challenging for even someone determined to see in without coming up to the window and craning their neck, you will lose a correlating amount of the external light coming in too.

Do wooden blinds make a room darker the darker the colour of the wood is?

Interestingly, yes! The darker the blind itself is, the darker this will make the room look and feel, and a dark-coloured blind (particularly one in a matte or natural wood finish) will also absorb a lot of the light.

A white or light-coloured wooden blind and one with a glossy finish will actually reflect any light that is present, into the room.

The difference you’d see visually between a dark and a light-coloured wooden blind and how much light they let in might be negligible if noticeable at all, but it is worth mentioning in the interests of accuracy!

Do wooden blinds make a room darker the larger the slats are?

Yes! This doesn’t occur to most people. Wooden blinds can be made with their slats in various different widths (or depths, more accurately) and the wider/deeper any slat is from front to back, the fewer of them that are required to construct the blind. This means fewer joins between slats and so, fewer opportunities for the light to get through.

Do wooden blinds make a room darker if they’re made-to-measure rather than readymade?

Yes, made-to-measure wooden blinds darken a room more effectively than readymade ones.

Made-to-measure wooden blinds are made of thicker wood than readymade ones, and only ever from wood that is fully suitable for the task (sustainably forested hardwoods). Also, they’re constructed with greater care to ensure better uniformity/matching between slats and as a result, smaller gaps.

Small gaps (that can generally only be identified at all by the presence of light filtering through them) are inevitable in wooden blinds regardless of type, as wood is a natural material that has natural inconsistencies and unique qualities. But made-to-measure wooden blind slats will have much smaller gaps and be able to achieve a closer lie between slats than a readymade one and so, will allow you to darken the room to a greater degree.