Blinds Or Curtains?

[TimRatRace]

I am just about to refurb a 36 foot boat which has always had pretty naff curtains that match the seat covers(yuck). My initial thought was just to replace them with neater and cleaner ones in a more acceptable colour, but then I saw a boat for sale on apolloduck that had raffia pin blinds at the windows and this made the whole boat seem much more spacious. I guess some of the more obvious questions are warmth, privacy and cost to questions about what are the benefits or nay of either - can anyone please give me their advice and their preferences and what the real pros and cons are! I want to get this right and I know many of you have learnt from experience!

 

Thanks (in anticipation!)

[IAN A]

We went for IKEA aluminium venetian blinds - fixed at the bottom with cupboard magnets - after nearly a year, these do seem to work well - keeping sun out when necessary, but having the flexibility of completely uncovering window when max visibility/light is wanted - They are also dirt cheap and easy to fit

 

downsides are: these fit with our wood/modern theme internally, but prob not with anything chintzy

dirt : b******rs to clean - so we are considering replacing slats - you get twice as many as you need for your £6 each.

 

Ian

[Bones]

i gave up on curtains and have gone for black out blinds. When they get dirty and need a wash I can cut off the dirty bit and start again!

 

The blinds are better for me as they are tidyer and cleaner

[andy the hammer]

Has anybody got material Roman blinds to cover a portholes and if so could you tell me how they are fixed to get over the problem of slanting boat sides?

 

Regards

 

andy

[byewash]

Has anybody got material Roman blinds to cover a portholes and if so could you tell me how they are fixed to get over the problem of slanting boat sides?

 

Regards

 

andy

 

Feb. Canal Boat has a pic of Venetian blinds running in wooden channels (new boat review) this might be a solution ,hope it helps or gives food for thought.

Regards

[blackrose]

The other downside of blinds is that they offer virtually no themal insulation, but then thin curtains don't either. I often wonder why we wax lyrical about the merits of certain sprayfoam thicknesses, only to then clad a sizeable proportion of the boat's superstructure in a single sheet of glass and expect it to keep the heat in?

Edited January 13, 2008 by blackrose

[BlueStringPudding]

The other downside of blinds is that they offer virtually no themal insulation, but then thin curtains don't either. I often wonder why we wax lyrical about the merits of certain sprayfoam thicknesses, only to then clad a sizeable proportion of the boat's superstructure in a single sheet of glass and expect it to keep the heat in?

 

Our wooden venetian blinds offer good insultaion - just twist the twisty thing so the slats when closed point upwards. The heat skims over them as it rises. The difference in temperature near the windows when the bllinds are closed in this way is markedly different to when they're closed t'other way round. (If that make sense? )

 

And they're fixed parallel to the walls by tiny hooks that loop through the vertical threads that run through the bottom slat. Easy peasy.

 

We didn't like curtains either because they close the space in too much. It feels much more open and the lines much cleaner with blinds - and being wooden we've matched them to the internal trim of the boat.

 

I know some people on here don't like 'em, but we've got the IKEA ones because they're the only place that we could find the correct widths for our windows, and they're cheap (when you have thirteen windows to dress, cheap is good)...

 

Ikea Blinds

[bridgit]

I have had blinds in the galley and bathroom, and when needed cleaning which seemed often I hung them in the shower and sprayed them with cleaning solution and showered them off. I had curtains elsewhere and had thickly lined winter ones and lighter summer ones.

[Capey]

Has anybody got material Roman blinds to cover a portholes and if so could you tell me how they are fixed to get over the problem of slanting boat sides?

 

Regards

 

andy

Easy, just tuck them into those little pole things, stops them flapping about - you know what I mean, sorry, looks like a tiny little towel rain (well I never said I was technical)

[blackrose]

Our wooden venetian blinds offer good insultaion - just twist the twisty thing so the slats when closed point upwards. The heat skims over them as it rises. The difference in temperature near the windows when the bllinds are closed in this way is markedly different to when they're closed t'other way round. (If that make sense? )

Are they a tight fit to the wall when they're closed? Anything over the window will obviously help a bit, but you can't really tell where heat's escaping from unless the boat's covered in snow and you can see where it's melting (usually just the coachroof), or you have a thermal imaging camera. Heat will get through thin wood just as it would if you had 3mm wooden paneling with no insulation behind. Anyway, if people with blinds ever feel they're losing too much heat in winter they can always use the shrinkfilm stuff to double glaze the windows over winter.

[BlueStringPudding]

Are they a tight fit to the wall when they're closed?

 

Pretty good yes. There's no more gap at the sides than you'd get with curtains that were fixed at the bottom.

 

This is our sitting room when we first moved aboard (as you can see, no fixed furniture at that stage, bin bags of masterboard and rockwool about the place, and a dead Ermintrude on the chair!). You can see the blind against the wall to the left of the photo.

 

 

Edited to say: oops - the blind is obviously to the right of the photo, not the left. D'uh.

Edited January 14, 2008 by BlueStringPudding

[blackrose]

Pretty good yes. There's no more gap at the sides than you'd get with curtains that were fixed at the bottom.

 

In that case perhaps they do keep the heat in better than I thought.

[Chris Pink]

In my window days (before portholes) i had raffia blinds, the great thing about them is they could be trimmed easily to fit just inside the window surround as if in channel, tied up rolled with ribbon. Just about see-through so that the side facing the bank could have permanent blinds and the offside open. One big blind did all my windows.