While bare windows are gorgeous when the view and architecture is lovely, many rooms can still benefit from the right kinds of window coverings. In fact, the right blinds can:

• Create privacy
• Make a room quieter
• Add style to a room
• Add texture and colour

Here are a few more things the right blinds can do for your home.

1. Exceptional Light Control

When installed properly, window blinds allow you to effortlessly adjust how much natural light enters a room to suit your needs. With other window dressings, you might be limited to how much light can enter the rooms and you may struggle to adjust the direction and amount of light as easily as you can with blinds.

2. Blinds Offer Complete Privacy

Blinds provide an excellent level of privacy that you just won’t get with other kinds of window coverings, like shades and curtains. What’s more, when they are closed, blinds do not offer any lines of sight into your house, which means you can sit back and relax, enjoying your time without worrying about peering or nosy neighbours. If you still want to take advantage of natural light during the daytime, and a good sense of privacy, you could consider top-down shades that you can lower from the top downwards to allow light in while enjoying utter privacy.

3. Loads Of Different Styles

Window blinds in the UK at Made to Measure Blinds come in an almost endless array of styles, patterns, and colours. Such a vast selection makes it easy to create the ideal look in any room in your home. Whatever you do choose, you want to pick something that’s going to last. Remember, the blinds you pick are going to be around for a while, so you want them to look good. Don’t just pick a “that will do” colour, pick blinds that make the right statement in the right room. For instance, bright, rich cherry wood blinds or genuine oak blinds go well with natural furniture and flooring.

4. A True Fit

You don’t have to try and guess or measure yourself. The blinds experts will cut the blinds to fit your windows perfectly. So, you get the look you’ve always dreamed of and the light control and privacy you deserve.

5. Energy Saving

Installing quality blinds means you can actually have a positive affect on your home’s energy costs. A lot of heat is lost through the windows in a house. That means that the heat from outside may seep into your house when you’d prefer the indoors to be cool and comfortable. But, you can work to combat this while saving on your monthly utility expenses when you pick well-fitted, made-to-last blinds. Spending a little more on your window coverings actually saves you money in the long run.

Invest in quality window blinds for your home today!

Working from home is what you always wanted. But to keep the dream alive, you need to be productive. Create a stimulating environment to facilitate comfort and productivity.

Find a Quiet Corner

People love to work from home because it’s convenient. You can check on the kids, do laundry, and clean the living room between work tasks. But too many distractions make it hard to concentrate on work for long periods and lowers overall production. Find a quiet corner so you can focus on work and won’t be tempted to break concentration.

Bring In the Green

Some choose the spot with the best view. But that may not be the quietest or most productive area. If you yearn for a garden or rustic view, but find that the basement is the best spot for the office, buy an assortment of plants and foliage to arrange throughout. Bring more natural elements inside to make the area more comfortable and peaceful. Sometimes you have to create the view you want.

Infuse Oil

Scents have a great influence on how you’re feeling. Introduce lavender and jasmine into your working area by using an infuser and natural oils. Potted plants and scented candles achieve the same effect. Mix scents to find the right aroma that is both stimulating and relaxing.

Create a To-Do List

Schedule task in blocks and leave time for short breaks. Often, people get overwhelmed throughout the workday because they don’t have a clear agenda. Schedule times to check and respond to email. Otherwise, responding to every email that comes through will break concentration. Try the Pomodoro Technique.

Take Digital Notes

Some live by post-it notes. The problem is the small pieces of paper lose stickiness, get lost, shuffled in with other papers, etc. Use an app that uploads to the cloud. That way, you can write notes from any device as well as retrieve them from anywhere. Evernote is a popular app that is great for at-home professionals.

Provide Plenty of Light

Whether you’re making arts and crafts or doing remote marketing work for a major agency, you need sufficient lighting in your work area. RS Components has lighting solutions including strip lights and downlights.

Invite Guests

It’s good to get out of the office for conversation yet you don’t have to leave home for that. Invite friends and colleagues over for discussions. Schedule some face to face time with neighbors, colleagues, and friends.

Rotate Furniture

You may not have plenty of options when it comes to the location of your home office, but you can rotate the furniture in the space for a fresh perspective. Do something different with the elements in the room every quarter so things don’t grow stale.

Get a Pet

It can get lonely working from home. Even those with families get lonely when kids are at school and spouses at work. Consider bringing a pet into your family so you have company while working from home.

High, vaulted ceilings make any room great. They provide a “lofty” feeling that the room is larger and more spacious than it would be with lower ceilings, but they also come at a price: it’s much harder to keep the room cool in the summer and warm in the winter.

This doesn’t mean, however, that you have to sacrifice your architectural style or family comforts so you can save money on the heating and air condition bill. It just means that you may need to do a little extra planning in order to keep the temperature right where you want it. In fact, you can include a few simple things during construction — or add them in a small renovation — that will help you out all year long. Here are a few helpful hints on keeping those high-ceilinged rooms comfortable no matter the temperature outside.

Good Ventilation

It’s a simple matter of physics that warm air rises and settles near the ceiling of every room. The warmer it is, the larger that cushion of warm air will be. In the winter, this can be a good thing because the warm air is trapped in the room and can help regulate the temperature. In the summer however, it’s a totally different story.

The best way to get that warm air out of your house during the summer is to install whole-house fans that will transfer the air through the attic to the outside. These systems work best when the outside air is cooler than the inside, so it’s best to use the fan at night, expelling any warm air left over from the daytime while you sleep. Whole-house fans can be installed in any room to help keep it cool. They also use a lot less electricity that an air conditioning unit.

Prevent Heat Loss

High-lofted ceilings are more difficult to keep warm in the winter just because they are so much larger and have that much more air in them to heat. If you find yourself having difficulty keeping your room warm, then you might want to check the insulation.

While every home has insulation installed during construction, it should be periodically checked. You can always add additional insulation if you think there’s a problem.

Also, check the weather stripping around all of the windows and doors in the room. You can lose a lot of energy through unseen cracks in window and door frames that lead to the outside. If the cracks are large enough, you may be able to feel the air escaping. If not, you can hold a candle near the windows and see if the flame is disturbed by any drafts. If you find any, fix them immediately and the room should be warmer in no time.

Use the Right Air Conditioning

If you just can’t keep your room cool during the summer, you may not have the right air conditioning unit installed.

Air conditioning systems can only exchange a certain volume of air at any given time, so if your system is just not powerful enough, it could be why you find yourself sweating even when the thermostat is turned way down. The company that installed the air condition during construction may have only taken the square footage of your home into account, rather than the total volume it would have to cool, making it inefficient.

You can simply add smaller units throughout the house to take some of the workload away from your main unit, or you can replace the unit altogether. Obviously, the latter option will be more expensive, but, depending on what your future plans are, it may still make better sense.

Ceiling Fans

One of the simplest — and cheapest! — things you can do to help both warm and cool your home is to install ceiling fans in every room. And if you have a room with a high ceiling, a fan is a must.

Ceiling fans help circulate the air all around, eliminating hot and cold spots and allowing your air condition and heating systems to work more efficiently, In the summer, you’ll enjoy the breeze that the fan provides and in the winter, you can use the fan to circulate the warm air back down toward you, making you feel instantly warmer. If you are so inclined and don’t mind some DIY, you can even install a ceiling fan yourself in just a few hours.

Consider these points if you want to keep your high-ceilinged rooms comfortable and contact Advantage Air to answer any of your questions.

Millie Hamilton is studying to become an interior designer, always being passionate about home decor and having her own unique style. She writes about pretty and practical matters around the home.