Cleaning Your Blackout Blinds To Keep Allergies At Bay

For the best results and to keep allergies at bay, you'll want to keep up with your cleaning. Your allergist probably has already recommended vacuuming 2 to 3 times a week with a vacuum with a hepa filter. You should also dust at least once a week (if you're the one with allergies, while wearing a mask). When dusting your blackout blinds for the first time after an extended period, make sure you use a damp cloth to reduce the amount of dust and allergens that fly up.

Everyone suggests doing a little a day to make cleaning your home as easy as possible. If you're someone who can do this, switch off your vacuuming and dusting days. If you can even dust your blackout blinds once a week, you'll significantly reduce the amount of dust and allergens that collect in your room. If you can manage it and your house collects a lot of dust or you have a pet (or a few pets) it may be best to dust twice a week.

Make sure you dust your blackout blinds with a damp cloth to keep from pushing the allergens up in the air or spreading them around your home. If you have stained wood blinds, you can use furniture polish to keep the blinds looking great. Be sure to get both sides of the blackout blinds as well as the window casing and the entire window.

If you're more like me and can't manage to clean a little every day, be sure that you always use a damp cloth when dusting your blackout blinds. Another great suggestion is to keep the windows in your home closed at all times. This helps in keeping the amount of dust and allergens that collect on your blinds and other furniture down. It's not always possible to keep your windows closed at all times, especially on the warmer days of spring and the hot summer days. During those seasons, consider enlisting the help of your family to keep dust and allergens at bay.

Blackout Blinds or Blackout Shades? Which to Choose.

When you're looking to decide between blackout blinds and blackout shades, you should always consider which you prefer for design style. However, there is a big key difference you need to keep in mind when considering blackout blinds over blackout shades (or vice versa).

What I've noticed when talking to people who purchased blackout shades is that they love how they look and the fact that they block out 99% of the light (whatever you do with blackout blinds, they won't block out that much light). However, the biggest drawback is that they cannot open their blackout shades while maintaining their privacy. So, if the blackout shades are open, they're open.

Now, living in a sunny place (with neighbors close by), I understand when I hear, "well, we never opened our window blinds so I figured we'd get blackout shades to block out more light than blackout blinds." What most people don't take into account is that normal window blinds still let in a fair amount of light when closed. So, while you may complain about how much light they let in on occasion, do you really want your room pitch black all the time? And, on the times that you don't want it pitch black, do you really want to let anyone passing by look into your window?

Blackout blinds allow for a great amount of flexibility. They block out most of the light, and while they let in more than blackout shades, blackout blinds do their job. Plus, they can look great in any room design. And, you can choose to tilt the slats to let in light while not letting anyone have a view of the room to tilting them so they're horizontal and filtering the view of the room to pulling them up completely to allow for a full view.

If you're still set on blackout shades but want a little more flexibility, consider buying them with the top down, bottom up option. This option allows you to open and close them like regular blackout shades but you can also pull them down from the top: which allows you to let in some light while maintaining your privacy (after all, there are few people who are tall enough to look in from the top of a window).

Blackout Blinds: Great For Allergies

I'm currently going through one of the worst allergy seasons of my life and now understand why my mother was so strict about NEVER having anything but window blinds in their home. Both my father and I suffer from severe allergies and are especially miserable in the spring and fall.

If you're looking for blackout window treatments, you probably first thought of blackout curtains or blackout shades. Both are really popular because they can block out 100% of the light while blackout blinds can't.

However, blackout blinds can block out MOST of that light and are more flexible than drapes or shades... so, there's one good reason to install them in your home. With both blackout drapes and blackout shades, you can only have them open or shut. Blackout blinds let you open, close, and tilt the slats.

Now, I personally LOVE the way drapes look. I've grown up with window blinds my entire life, so I think they're somewhat boring. And, most design shows show adding drapes or roman shades to a room - rarely do they add window blinds. However, the one thing most of them don't consider is that drapes collect EVERYTHING. Dust, pet dander, pet hair... everything gets caught in them and is extremely difficult to get out. Most drapes can only be dry cleaned, which makes it even more difficult and expensive to clean. With blackout blinds, all you need to do is dust!

Now, keep in mind, you should always only get routeless blackout blinds if you're worried about your allergies. There's no reason to make cleaning more difficult - or to give allergens another place to hang on to.