Choosing Blinds for Your Child’s Room

Children’s rooms need careful consideration when you design them. Not only do need to think about providing a stimulating and interesting environment you also need to consider how to the room safe for you to leave your child alone in it. When decorating my nephew’s room recently we identified three main concerns that we needed to pay attention to.

Safety
Of course safety is the main concern for any parents, when it comes to window treatments the main concerns are whether the child can strangle or trip when playing with the control cords. There are two obvious ways to avoid this risk, the first is to look for blinds that have an alternative control system This includes extravagant options such as remote controls, and more practical ones such as a crank system. However these are both expensive and somewhat impractical. A simpler and cheaper option is to look for blinds with short cords, preferably no more than three inches. A great choice way of doing this is to use roller blinds as they often have short cords or can have their cords shortened easily. They are also relatively affordable. Another option is consider curtains which don’t require any cords. As a side note it is also essential to ensure that whatever treatment you choose, it is securely installed to ensure it doesn’t fall.

Lighting
The main reason that we decided to go with roller blinds rather than curtains is because they do a better job at blacking out the light. This is because my brother’s family lives on a busy street and my nephew gets disturbed by the lights of passing cars. People living in quieter areas may prefer blinds which let some light in. Particularly on school mornings when you want your child to wake up! There have also been several studies showing that natural light improves people’s mood and health so if you can let sun light in without disturbing your child’s sleep do! Translucent blinds let in a diffuse light, meaning that they can help to cool the room and create a warm light. Some suppliers sell duel roller blinds which include a translucent blind for days when the sun is too hot and a black-out blind for the night time.

Patterns and Designs
After safety and ensuring a good night’s sleep you also want your child’s room to be fun! If you can provide your child with a stimulating environment then they are less likely to get bored and will prefer to use the room as retreat. You should feel free to play around with the large choice of patterns and designs available for blinds. Again roller blinds really come into their own here as they are very easy to customize. With my nephew we tried to find an option that was appealing to him now at two but wouldn’t be embarrassing when he was nine or ten. My sister in law was also concerned that the set we choose would be able to cope with them repainting the room several times. In the end we choose dark blue blinds decorated with stars. But the choice obviously depends on the child, the room and the parents. In other words it’s up to you!

Author:
This is a guest post by Daniel Frank, as UK blogger and interior design enthusiast who is currently writing on behalf of a wooden blinds supplier.