Venetian & Wooden Blinds

A venetian tilts. That is the whole point. Every other blind gives you up or down and nothing in between. Tilt the slats and you can throw the light up at your ceiling while anyone on the pavement still sees nothing. Late afternoon sun coming flat through a west-facing lounge is where it earns its money.

Aluminium is 25mm slats in a hundred-odd colours, and it belongs in kitchens and bathrooms. Steam does nothing to it. Real wood is 50mm basswood, lighter in the hand than people expect. Faux wood is PVC and it is heavy. Past about 1.8m wide it sags in the middle, so Craig splits it into two blinds on one headrail and nobody notices the join.

Real wood in a bathroom will bow. Not maybe. The slats drink the moisture and go banana-shaped down their length. After that they never close flush again. Faux wood there, every time. Worth knowing as well that a 50mm blind stacks about 130mm deep at the top, so on a shallow window over a sink you are handing back light you wanted. 35mm slats stack shorter if that matters.

Colour is the bit worth slowing down over. A warm oak that looks lovely in the brochure goes grey and flat in a north-facing back room. So Craig brings the samples out and you hold them up in the room they are going in, at the time of day you actually use it. Ladder tape is the same conversation. It covers the cord holes punched through every slat, and without it you get pinpricks of light down the blind when it is shut.