Blinds vs. Shades: Finding the Right Choice for You

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If you are in the market for new window treatments, then you know that there are so many different options to choose from. At some point or another, most people find themselves torn between whether they should choose blinds or shades, and which one is going to provide them with everything that they need. At face value, it can be really difficult to understand which one is going to provide you with everything that you need, mesh well with your aesthetic, and be the best fit for your home in general. We really wanted to break down the differences between the two, that way you can have a good idea of which one is going to provide you with the needs that you’ve prioritized.

Light Control and Privacy

Both of these options will provide you with plenty of control with natural lighting as well as privacy, which is a relief if this is something that you are prioritizing. The difference is going to be in how they do it. Shades are made from one solid piece of fabric, which gives them some additional texture. While it does give you a little bit more freedom with the colors that you’re able to choose from, your two options of light control with shades are going to be open, or closed. When you do want to allow for more light to flow in, you can always choose a material that is thinner, or a lighter color, so that you can still have some light come through. As for blinds, the method that they are designed with has created slats, that you can open and close at different degrees. With this, you are able to decide just how much light you’d like to have to shine in your home, but not as much selection in regards to color.

The Clean Up

One of our last blog posts touched on a few of the cleaning techniques that you can look forward to with your window treatments. This is something else that you’re going to want to take into consideration before you commit to one style or the other. Shades are relatively easy to clean because you can simply throw them into the washer and let them go through a cycle. Once they’re done you might need to steam them so that there isn’t a crease, but other than that it’s pretty easy to clean them when they need it.

As for blinds, there’s a process that you’re going to have to follow so that you don’t leave any slats with clusters of dust and so that all of the dust that is on your blinds, doesn’t get kicked up and wind up on your carpet. Your blinds don’t need to be cleaned all too often, and if you stay on top of cleaning them when they do need it, then it really isn’t too tedious to clean them either.

Style

We would be lying if we said style wasn’t one of the biggest differences that you’d have to take into consideration. Depending on the size, layout, aesthetics and overall look of your room, there’s a chance that you may have a preference between the two. For example, shades are usually the preferred choice for windows when a room looks shorter. This particular window styling, when done correctly, can make a room look much taller. On the other end, mini blinds can provide you with more control over natural lighting and privacy, which is nice to have in rooms where there are tons of windows. If you have a style in a room that makes sense, or there is a general theme that you’re trying to follow, then you should definitely take it into consideration so that you are happy with how the room looks at the end of the day, because chances are that one will look better than the other and you’ll know it when you see it.

For every need that you have, there is a window treatment that can take care of it. The answer is all in knowing what coverage is going to be the best. If you’re still not sure whether shades or blinds are a better option for you, stop by Arjay’s Window Fashions and a member of our team can help you out further.

Beautifully Decorate A Room With Natural Woven Shades

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Some window treatments offer more versatility in terms of their practical benefits, while others offer more of an attractive aesthetic. The reality is that window coverings aren’t created equally, and they each have their advantages and disadvantages. From an interior designer perspective, in today’s blog post, Arjay’s Window Fashions is going to briefly focus on naturally woven shades which will provide your home with a gorgeous, refined look that your guests are sure to love and appreciate.

An Eclectic Yet Refined Material

By getting setup with natural woven shades from the window covering experts at Arjay’s, you’ll be enhancing a room with beautiful, organic characteristics that look great as a stand-alone option on any window. Natural woven shades also go combine really well with drapery and other window treatments to add that extra touch of elegance and style to a room. With naturally-woven shades, it’s a really a win-win from a decorative point of view.

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One Of The Hottest Window Covering Trends

Natural woven shades also go by the names of Bamboo Shades, Grass Clothes, and Woven Woods. By synthesizing unique combinations of materials like real wood, bamboo, rattan, jute and other natural products, what you’re left with is a nearly endless palette of warm and colorful options. By providing a certain kind of earthy feeling to a given room, the natural weaves give you a lot of choices in the way of textures and design.

Woven Wood Shades

Arjay’s provides woven wood shades that really add an extra dimension of style and class to a room. We have wood tones that available in options like cherry, mahogany, pine, ash, and more wood types to complement your existing furnishing or even contrast with other parts of the room. The styling elements of woven wood shades are really versatile because they can be used to add an exotic and sophisticated look to a room, all the way to a simple, rustic appeal. Of course, this depends on the colors and materials that you choose to use, but whatever your ideas are, woven wood shades can most likely accommodate what you have in mind.

They’re Eco-Friendly, Too

With natural options like jute, reeds, grass, and bamboo, natural woven shades are a great selection for the environmentally-conscious interior designer. You’ll still get great color options as well, including color choices ranging from light beige and cream tones all the way to deep earth brown tones. By selecting from hundreds of patterns to bring out the natural beauty of the outdoors straight into your home, the customization options are virtually limitless.

Make Your Home A Place You Love And Enjoy

Whether you’re dazzling your guests, you professionally rent out properties or you’re just looking to make your personal home really pleasing to the eye, Arjay’s Window Fashions is the place to go for your interior design and window treatment needs. With customization options as comprehensive as ours, we’re incredibly confident that you’ll be satisfied with our shading solutions. To see how some of our naturally-woven shades look, browse this collections page. We look forward to getting in contact with you!

What Honeycomb Shades Have to Offer You

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If you are looking for a window treatment that is fashionable, energy efficient, customizable, and safe, honeycomb shades are an excellent option. Honeycomb shades are one of our most popular products here at Arjay’s, and we are happy to offer our customers the ability to customize these window treatments to their specifications. If you are interested in installing honeycomb shades in your windows, give us a call today. In the meantime, read this blog for more information on these unique and beneficial window treatments.

What are Honeycomb Shades?

Honeycomb shades are also known as cellular shades or light-filtering shades. Similar to an accordion, these shades are made of fabric and stack like on top of each other when drawn, but when you look at their sides, they look similar to a honeycomb. These unique shades are best known for their tiny built-in air pockets, which increase their energy efficiency and maximize their light-filtering properties. They come in a variety of types of fabric, sizes, and colors, making them fully customizable; it is even possible to get honeycomb shades that are completely hypoallergenic, blocking out allergens like dust and pollen from your home. There are many reasons to love honeycomb shades; read on for their benefits.

Benefits of Honeycomb Shades

Insulation

Honeycomb shades are great for insulating your home, keeping it warm in winter and cool in summer. This is why they are so energy efficient; instead of wasting energy by allowing it to seep through your windows, honeycomb shades ensure that your heat or air conditioning stay indoors. This allows you to both reduce your carbon footprint and save money on your energy bills, making honeycomb shades a win-win window treatment.

Light and Sound Control

Another benefit of honeycomb shades is greater control of both light and sound. You can choose from a variety of fabrics for various levels of light-filtering. Some honeycomb shades range from slightly light-filtering to completely light-blocking, depending on which material you choose. This means that honeycomb shades are a good option whether you want to fill your dining room with soft natural sunlight or if you want to create a bedroom of total darkness while you sleep.

Additionally, honeycomb shades are excellent at blocking out sound. The air pockets in honeycomb shades absorb any noise from outside, ensuring that you don’t have to worry about any noise pollution in your home. Whether you live on a busy street with a lot of traffic or your neighbors like to throw parties, you can still find tranquility in your home.

Privacy

If you are concerned about your privacy, whether due to large, open windows or nosy neighbors, honeycomb shades can do a lot to ease your mind. Honeycomb shades have long been used by photographers to have greater control over light, and this property can also aid you in ensuring privacy in your home. Your neighbors won’t even be able to see your silhouette through your new honeycomb shades, so you can rest assured that no one is able to peer into your windows and see anything.

Aesthetically Pleasing

Honeycomb shades come in a wide variety of colors, sizes, and types of fabric, allowing you to decorate your home to your specifications without worrying about your blinds sticking out like a sore thumb. You can benefit from honeycomb shades’ convenience, light control, and energy efficiency benefits without compromising on the elegance of your home decor. You are also able to install honeycomb shades that are vertical traversing, top-down bottom-up, or top down. Additionally, honeycomb shades are easy to seamlessly hide, as they create a small stack that can be obscured by a decorative valance if necessary.

Affordable

Honeycomb shades are also an affordable window treatment. Not only do these window treatments save you money in your energy bills, they are relatively inexpensive to install. Depending on your customizations, you can save quite a bit of money opting for honeycomb shades instead of other alternatives.

At Arjay’s, we are dedicated to providing you with the window treatments you need for your Ventura home, including honeycomb shades, as well as many others. Regardless of your preferred type of shade or drapery, you can completely customize your choice to your specifications when you choose to work with Arjay’s Window Fashions. If you are interested in benefiting from our services, contact us today!

Tips for Making Your Windows Look Bigger

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When you are decorating your home, you may long for large picture windows with expansive views, but this is not a standard feature on every home. While you could hypothetically install larger windows with a remodel, this isn’t always a realistic option, whether due to the structure of your home or the budget of your family. However, if your home doesn’t have the big, wide windows of your dreams, it isn’t the end of the world; fortunately, there are plenty of ways to trick the eye into thinking a window is much bigger than it truly is. If you are looking for a way to make your small windows appear larger, read on for some simple tricks.

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Add Height

You can make your windows look taller using window treatments. If your windows are short, you can make them look taller by hanging floor-length drapes or curtains near the ceiling, roughly two inches below the molding ideally. If the gap between the top of the window and the curtain rod appears awkwardly large, you can feel that empty space with a cornice board, lambrequin, or valance over the curtain, or by installing a shade underneath the curtain to cover the wall. If you add shades, install the top of them right below the rod, and then do not raise the bottom above the top edge of the window. If you go for cornice boards or lambrequins, avoid ones with straight bottoms.

Add Width

If the issue with your small window is that it is too narrow, the aim of your window treatments is to add width. Choose a curtain rod that is wider than the window and molding by about 60 to 80 percent. Use drawing curtains or drapes across the width of the entire space, or hang separate stationery panels to each side of the window. Each panel should go from the end of the rod to just past the edge of the window. Either way, this tricks the eye because it assumes that the width of the curtain covers more window, not the wall. You can emphasize the width of the window even more by topping the window with a straight-bottomed cornice board or valance.

Add Height and Width

If your window is both short and narrow, there are other ways you can make it look bigger. Start by installing a long rod near the top of the ceiling. From this rod, hang a floor-length drapery panel or curtain so that the leading edges slightly overlap the outer edge of the glass. If necessary, top these panels with a lambrequin, valance, or cornice board with either straight or curved bottoms in order to fill the excess wall space or simply to add some interesting decoration. If the panels do not close over the glass, you can add a fabric or woven shade for privacy.

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Choose the Right Window Treatment Fabric

You can make a window look larger by strategically choosing the pattern and fabric of your window treatment. For example, if the window is short and you would like to make it look taller, opt for curtains that feature a vertical pattern. This does not necessarily mean you have to go for stripes; any pattern that will draw the eye up and down will create the illusion of length. If you have narrow windows you would like to appear wider, a horizontal pattern will have the opposite effect as a vertical pattern, drawing the eye from side to side instead of up and down, distracting from its narrow nature. If the window is both narrow and short, either a vertical pattern, a solid color, or a print with no obvious direction are the way to go.

You can also use placement to make your windows look wider. Make your shades, valances, cornice boards, or lambrequins out of the same fabric as your curtains or drapes, or use a pattern, color, or mini-print to add contrast.

At Arjay’s, we are proud to provide our customers with high-quality, gorgeous window treatments for their homes. Whether you wish to make your windows look taller, wider, or you like them just the way they are, there is a window treatment that is sure to please your eye. Shop our collection of window treatments here today!

When to Replace Your Mini Blinds – Part 2

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blinds4In our last blog post, we touched on a few of the ways that you can recognize when it’s time to get your blinds replaced. While those particular signs are ways to see them, they aren’t the only ways that you will be able to recognize that your blinds need to be replaced. In our blog post today, we are going to touch on a few other signs that will present.

Worn Down Cords

When you have mini blinds, the cords that connect the different slats look fantastic, but they also keep your mini blinds compact and working as they’re intended to. The more that blinds are used, the more frayed they become, and definitely starts to show. When the cords that are connecting the slats of your blinds begin to fray, it’s a telling sign that you should start to shop for new window coverings so that your blinds don’t snap and need immediate replacement.

Out of Style

While it isn’t the most important reason that people invest in window coverings, the style factor that they contribute to a space does matter. If you haven’t replaced your window coverings in some time, chances are that they’re not providing you with as much efficiency as you could with new window coverings. This also gives you the opportunity to update the overall styling of your home.

Whether your blinds are broken or they’re simply out of style, you can count on Arjay’s Window Fashions to provide you with the high-quality window coverings that you need. Call in today and allow for us to set up a consultation with a member of our team. When you stop by our office in Ventura, you’ll see that we can help you find the perfect fit and learn more about what your needs are so that we can provide you with the best guidance that we can.