Blinds are the eyelids of our home, integrated and essential for rest. We thought about hidden blinds at the outset of the project. Our timber frame company stepped up the structure to allow space for the blind, we built out the recess for blinds in timber battens, slabbed around recess with plasterboard and then skimmed and paint, we wired all the big windows for electric blinds and finally Apollo Blinds made the blinds to measure and fitted.
Hidden blinds are great as the focus is just on the frame to the outside and the timber finish of the windows. Funnily we had a friend visit recently and assumed that we hadn’t got around to putting up blinds or curtains yet. I hit the switch on the wall and all the blinds came down in a James Bond style moment. It’s difficult not to show off after all the hard work!
I had considered chargeable blinds, but I had the electrician on site the same time Apollo blinds came to price the job and we realised it would be better long-term solution to wire and much easier to do it now without a massive jump in price. One thing to note is the blinds need an isolator switch, but this can easily be located beside a socket rather than high up on the wall where it would be more obvious.
There is also an option for an app to control the blinds from the phone. I see this been useful in the future if we ever get to go away on holidays again and can close the blinds remotely and if I’m too lazy to get off the couch, I can close the blinds in bedrooms or upstairs. Apollo blinds were great to deal with and provide a personal and high-quality service and products.
There are still lots of jobs to do and these take a lot longer between kids, work and life. Paint jobs can stretch out, with brushes going hard in their plastic bags waiting to be finished. But we have so much to be thankful for and love the warmth that hits when we come home everyday. We put on heat for a couple of hours last week in living room but, no heating other than that, the solar gain warms up the spaces and it’s retained very well, temp range 20-21 on average.
WindowScreen
A calm room with a wide-angle window providing all the drama. A frame to the changing light,treesand sky.Its east facing position, brings in a blade of morning light, dappledbefore the sun’s accent.Treesare lit withwestern evening light, before the full moon rises behind the trees.This room is sparse at the moment, but there is plenty to entertain us with this ever-changing window screen.