Tilting and Lifting Blind and Shade Window Coverings
Window coverings are a necessity, whether you think so or not. Some homeowners feel like they can go without putting window shades or window blinds in their home. In some cases, this is true, but those situations are few and far between.
The basic rule of thumb should be this; if others can look in and see you, they will, so hang a window blind! In situations where you have windows that face nothingness, no problem, leave the windows bare. Maybe you’re of the opinion that the view into your house is so interesting and exciting, so you want to give others the opportunity to feast their eyes. Well good for you, but still, hang some window shades. You at least have the option, and can always leave them open.
Now that I got that out of the way, I’ll get to the heart of the matter regarding window coverings. Do you want to open the view, whether your intent is from the outside in, or the inside out, by lifting or tilting. Both ways provide advantages. Depending on the room, the way the sun comes in, and the size of the window, you might find that there is a good reason to outfit your windows with both blinds and shades.
Window blinds tilt and lift. I’m talking about horizontal blinds. Vertical blinds tilt and open, but that’s another conversation. The slats in a horizontal blind can be tilted by either a tilt wand or a cord tilt, depending on how they are ordered. The advantage of a blind over a shade is that they can be tilted at any angle, so if the sun comes in, causing glare, and you want to redirect the rays, simply tilt the slats up. The window blind can even be lifted in a tilted state, but that kind of defeats the purpose.
Window shades have to be lifted in order to open the view. So using the glare example from above, you would eliminate the view, in both directions, to keep the sun out. The shade doesn’t have to be all the way closed; it just depends on the degree of privacy, and the angle of the sun. There is even this cool feature on some window shades called, Top Down / Bottom Up, which allows the shade to be lowered from the top as well as lifted from the bottom.