One of the first things Steven bought when he moved in to our home in winter of 2004 was custom blinds for all the windows. But we never bought shades.
Until now! We FINALLY have blackout shades for out bedroom! Look at how much light came in our blinds before (picture above taken during the day, picture below at dusk). The moon would always shine in to our room at night before, as well as the streetlights.
That is no more!
Now all we see is this:
Ha ha. Not really. We have too many electronic devices in the room, so there was still some light in there, but it’s much better than before.
It only took us FOUR tries to find the right shades. Do you know what a pain in the butt it is to take shades home to check the color, unfold them, decide you don’t like them, then try to fold them back up perfectly in to those little plastic containers? Yeah. Steven did that part.
And did you know my title at work is Interior Designer? Ugh. So NOT an Interior Designer. I can tell you how to build a wall, not how to match colors.
Anyway, it is going to be so nice to have these shades to sleep in on the weekends in the summer (when the sun rises at 5:00 am!). And maybe it will confuse Data and he won’t wake me up super early anymore. And maybe I can sneak in for a nap some afternoon and have it be nice and dark. Ahh…
The only bad part is that it is that much harder to get out of bed. And I have really been struggling with getting out of bed lately. Oh well!
I’ll be curious to see how you do in the mornings – I need the light sometimes to be motivated to get up. I’ll also be curious to see if it really fools Data, haha!
The light is nice – it makes waking up more natural. But I have gotten so used to waking up at 4:30 in the winter that my body naturally wakes me up then, practically every day! (but sometimes it’s helpful ;))
And I bet there is NO foolin’ that cat. Sigh.
I’ve never heard them called shades before… I call them curtains. I have bought blackout curtains for my basement windows but I have yet to buy any curtains for any other room in my house. One thing at a time I guess.
Black out curtains are one more thing we’ll have to buy when the little tyke gets here. I guess it helps them sleep longer…
I need those in my life ASAP! We have a street light right outside of our window and our room never gets dark. We talk about getting them all the time, but never do!
We used to talk about it all the time too. These are actually from Walmart (the blackout shades and the bars) and cost less than $100 for three panels and two bars. Check there (if you aren’t opposed to shopping at Walmart – not saying you are, I just know people who are, so I always say that… so you know I am sensitive to the fact that people may be. HA HA HA).
I need some black out curtains in my bedroom, for sure. I hate mini blinds. As an apartment manager, I’ve had to see too many of them and install them (TOTAL PAIN). Ours in our bedroom broke the other day and I can’t bring myself to replace them.
Ugh, buying curtains is rough! Glad you finally found some you like. They should definitely make it easier to sleep in on weekends but I agree they make it difficult to get out of bed during the week. Maybe your next purchase should be one of those alarm clocks that slowly lights up? Although I have one and I can still sleep through it 🙂
I don’t have one of those, but I have a thing to attach to my light that makes it slowly turned on – I used to use it in college! I just wish I could sleep as long as I wanted, every day. 🙂
I love room darkening shades! I always get woken up early if I forget to close them at night. Makes me so mad!
My wife loves the idea of having no light peaking through. I used to give her crap for it until it started bothering me when we traveled places. Now we take push pins and folder clips with us to tack the side of the curtain to the wall to reduce the light coming in.
At first glance, I thought this post was about Mtn Dew grape flavored soda
http://www.banalleakage.com/2011/06/12/mtn-dew-pitch-black-with-vodka/
We had the same problem when we bought our house. We were up by 6AM every. single. day. because we had mini-blinds in our east-facing bedroom. Sunshine + birds chirping = no sleep. We bought those lined blackout curtains and never looked back. They help keep it cooler, too!
We need new curtains in our bedroom and for the sake of my husband who has major trouble sleeping if anything is “off” in the room, I’ll need to get blackout curtains. I have been looking on and off for about two years now and can’t find any I love.
Enjoy sleeping in the darker room!
My bedroom opens into a large master bath without a door between the two (a southwest thing). The bath has a huge window in it that I leave the blinds open on (there’s no way anyone can see in with the configuration of my backyard, another southwest thing) so there’s always great sunlight that streams in.
In contrast, Troy has blackout curtains in his bedroom. I’ve found that with the blackout curtains I can easily sleep all day (think, like noon!) and have no idea since I’m used to having the sun with me when I wake up. It makes me kind of depressed to have to wake up before the sun, and I love having a bright, happy room around me in the morning.
I love your blinds too – they look so elegant. Since I’ve been renting for so long, I’ve been stuck with beat up plastic blinds for waaaaay too long.
It is weird not to have the sun now, but it’s so nice to have it dark when we fall asleep. Of course, my AV consultant husband thinks we need automated shades on a timer. So they open right before we awake. Sigh. 🙂
Thank you 🙂
now that through trial and error you are pros at putting curtains up, can you come do that to my bedroom?!? and maybe with curtains that are also soundproof?