All About Room Darkening Shades

While renovating the office as a nursery, we chose to get replace the mini blinds with install room-darkening shades. Having heard many great reasons to choose room-darkening shades, especially for a nursery, it wasn’t a hard decision to make. Any edge on getting the baby to sleep longer in the morning is a path to choose. We chose to go with plastic room darkening shades since they were inexpensive.

The former office was the warmest room in the house. This was a major concern of mine for this to be the nursery. The room receives direct sunlight throughout the day and can become a bit toasty by mid afternoon. It would get unbearable to work during the middle of the day. This would not be a great situation for naptimes. Something had to be done. Besides blocking the sun, room-darkening shades keep a room cooler.

Room darkening shades work great in our nursery as it never gets too bright so it definitely keeps the sunlight out. The temperature in the room stays pleasant throughout the day. As far as the baby sleeping, she wakes up at the reasonable hour of 7am.

Installing the room-darkening shades was simple and took less than 30 minutes. The vinyl shades come in an adjustable size. You must measure your window to see what size to trim the shades. The shades will be perforated so it is easy to trim to size and not have one part of the shade the wrong size. Our shades did come with the necessary hardware. Check the shades to make sure all hardware is there or purchase hardware separately.

After we measured the window and trimmed the shades, we took down the old mini blinds. Next, we used our cordless drill to install the hardware for the shades in the windowsill. The hardware will have to go on a certain side of the shades because one end will be used for the tension that raises and lowers the shades. When the hardware is in installed, attach the shades. The bottom of the shade will have a piece of plastic that can also be adjusted to the size of the window. Thread the plastic piece through the bottom of the shade. It is as simple as that.

While the room-darkening shades work well, I worry about how long they will last once my baby becomes a toddler. So far, they have held up well but the shades do not see a lot of tugging and pulling. Since the cost of the shades was under $10 even if they only last a few years it is a well made investment.

Room darkening shades have been a great investment for our nursery. Not only does it keep the room cooler, my baby sleeps well past the sun coming up. The extra sleep is priceless. Room darkening shades would work well for other bedrooms especially for people who work rotating shifts