How To Best Select Functional Vertical Blinds

Sliding doors, patio doors, French doors and windows within both homes and workplaces can often be ignored, and allowed to look lifeless and uninviting. However, colourful fabric vertical blinds can make a significant and valued addition to the workspace, or at home, especially where large windows or doors open onto other living or natural spaces. The advantages of vertical blinds includes their cost, their flexibility, their ability to fit any size window, and the fact that they can be easily manufactured from a wide variety of materials and colors. Generally, most vertical blinds are made from a woven fabric based material - this helps with weight, and allows a certain amount of air through, so that even with a breeze blowing, the vertical slats stay reasonably still.

This is another advantage of vertical blinds - allowing plenty of fresh air into the room while at the same time reducing the amount of bright sunlight which may make working, concentrating or looking at a computer monitor unbearable. These are all not simply important factors when designing the office space, but essential from the point of view of health and safety and the policies which will undoubtedly govern any work place. But in addition to the simply practical advantages of vertical blinds, they offer enormous flexibility and freedom of choice when it comes down to choosing color and style. The vertical blinds can be manufactured using a wide variety of shades and colors, meaning that blending in with or complimenting any color theme or style currently in use in the workspace can be used, either providing pleasant and positive atmosphere in the office, or providing a unique corporate identity, helping to liven up the public image and emphasizing the nature of the business, its identity and known style. Through careful and considerate planning and designing, the style of vertical blinds chosen can have a significant impact on the atmosphere created within a room.

As the sunlight filters through the colored material, an atmosphere will pervade the whole room. For example, green vertical blinds can create a natural, lush feeling, excellent for positive, well balanced minds, whereas a rich red can create a warm, vibrant and energetic atmosphere. Blues help to engender a feeling of coolness and calm, whereas lighter creams and whites help to filter the sun's own light, taking away the glare and reflections whilst still providing a natural illumination.

Although vertical blinds are most popular in offices, shops and other workspaces, they are by no means exclusive to these environments, and many people choose vertical blinds as part of their home décor, helping in exactly the same way to cut out the heat and glare of sun whilst at the same time providing an economic, stylish and flexible solution within rooms such as studies, conservatories and patio or French windows. In exactly the same way as in the workplace, careful choice and selection of colors and styles can help to compliment the styles and themes within the room, and at the same time, helping to filter the daylight to create a subtly colored atmosphere across the living space, promoting well-being and positive feelings. Guests coming in to your home will at once feel that they are entering a vibrant, energetic living space, or a calm and subdued place of tranquillity, or a lush and natural home that is in touch with its outdoor surroundings. In addition to the fact that the use of vertical blinds can be slid so easily and conveniently to one side when needed, yet closed for privacy or protection, vertical blinds can help to connect the outside with the inside. Where a room opens onto a garden or patio, through the use of patio or French doors or a balcony perhaps, vertical blinds can help to link the two spaces and create a feeling of much wider spaces and larger rooms. For example, a room with a few red or terracotta accents, opening onto a patio or garden with terracotta plant pots or stands, with terracotta vertical blinds in the doorway or window space between, will help to frame and thereby connect one living space with the other, creating a sense of harmony and flow within the home.

Judith Persit studied bamboo shades for her interior design degree, and writes about bamboo shades. Learn more about shades at her website.