When you look at the motorized window blinds or custom drapes in your home, remember to see them for what they are … the pinnacle of window covering technology!

People have liked to have windows in their homes since humans moved out of caves. Windows let light in and keep our homes from becoming dark and damp, but they also let in dust, cold and, during periods of social strife, even bandits! The question of how to control what goes in and out of our windows is an age-old concern.

The Greek and Roman empires left us with some history of how that question was answered. The Greeks are credited with the invention of the window shutter. They made the shutters out of marble to keep out the hot Mediterranean sun. These must have been very heavy and the idea really drives home our designer  Theresa’s assertion that shutters should be seen as a piece of fine furniture.

The Romans had their own problems. Not only was it hot, but their cobblestone roads were dusty, making it very difficult to keep a house clean. The process of building their famous stone buildings, like the Coliseum, also produced a lot of dust and Roman homeowners needed a way to keep their windows covered. They came up with the idea of hanging pieces of wet cloth in the windows to catch the dust and cool the hot air. In time, inventors developed a way to pull these cloths up and down with a cord in a way that made the fabric fold up evenly. Today, this is known as the Roman Shade.

In the Middle Ages, Europeans had to solve different problems. The northern climate is not as hot, but homes and communities had to be protected against attacks. They developed the Security Shutter, a shutter held closed by an iron bar. They also built castles and palaces that needed suitable decoration, resulting in the widespread use of elaborate treatments, such as the Festoon and the Austria blind, both of which were updated versions of the Roman shade.

The use of window glass became popular in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, but those palaces still needed custom drapes. Many of the dramatic shapes and valances we use today are based on those installed in the 18th and 19th palaces of Europe.

Today, most people prefer simpler custom drapes, at least in Colorado Springs. 21st century homeowners are also concerned with energy conservation, which is why solar shades and cellular shades were developed. We have more versatile fabrics than our predecessors too.

We can only imagine how helpful motorized drapery rods would have been in a European castle. It’s too late for King Louis XIV, but we can still design something beautiful and functional for you. Call us today!

Are you the kind of person who carries empty bottles for miles until you come across a recycling bin? Do you mull over how to get the plastic and metal pieces of used containers apart, so they can go into the correct bin? If you are then we have a window covering for you!

Recycling works because the items you put into a bin are made into something new and people buy that new thing. Hunter Douglas participates in this process by making attractive, effective shades from a recycled polyester fabric.

The fabric used to make them comes from recycled water bottles. The process is really very interesting and you can read about it in this CNN Tech article. The bottles are shredded and then the plastic is turned into pellets. The textile company extrudes the pellets into polyester yarn and then weaves it into fabric. Depending on the thickness of the yarn and the type of weave, the fabric might be coarse and tough or soft and flexible. These days, you might find be wearing recycled bottles in your jacket or it might be protecting your planner.

Hunter Douglas offers shades made of a recycled product called GreenScreen Revive. Revive is made by Mermet, an Australian fabric manufacturer. The product is certified to be safe, non-polluting and fully recyclable. It’s made from plastic bottles and can go through the process to be recycled again at the end of the life of the window covering.

GreenScreen Revive is tightly woven so that it reduces glare and heat coming through a window, just like any other fabric used for shades. Unlike other fabrics, each square meter of the shade represents 12 water bottles that did not go into a landfill.

Hunter Douglas recycles other pre and post consumer wastes. For example, it uses recycled steel and aluminum in its blinds. In this way, metals that would have been wasted are retrieved and re-used, ultimately reducing the need to mine more metal and forge more steel.

Whether it’s recycled aluminum in blinds or fabric made from recycled bottles, the products derived from these materials look and feel just as beautiful as products made from virgin materials. You will love the way your home looks and you’ll be proud of it, knowing your purchases have made the planet a little cleaner.

Contact us today to learn more about installing beautiful, environmentally sound window coverings in your home!

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Picture this: You decide not to hire a designer with the idea of saving some money. “It’s just drapes,” you think. How hard could it be?

You’re pretty good with colors and art, so you order draperies that go nicely in the room and a box cornice to finish the look and cover the drapery hardware.

Everything seems perfect until you go to install it and the drapery hardware doesn’t fit under the cornice! Now what?

Now you have to reorder the cornice, an expensive mistake. What else could go wrong? Lots of things. The rod might not work with the ceiling. The rod may be cut at the wrong angle for a bay window. A door may no longer open once the drapery is installed.

Designing and installing custom drapery is as much about engineering as it is about art. Interior Designers and Professional Installers do a lot of calculation and use special measuring tools to make sure your job is right the first time. It’s more technical work than most people realize and interior design professionals use more geometry and algebra than the average person likes to think about.

“A million things can go wrong,” explains our designer, Theresa, “but it usually doesn’t because a professional knows how to make sure they order exactly the parts and sizes they need.”

How does it work? Once the window treatment design is complete and the customer has approved it, the designer and installer gather the information they need to engineer the system. They come to the home and spend time measuring every part of the window and surrounding area. They make drawings and schematics and may make phone calls to the manufacturer that result in adjustments. It’s a team effort that continues until they are certain every piece of your window treatment will work properly with every other piece.

Professional measuring is a big enough reason by itself to hire professionals for your custom drapes because you avoid the expense of mistakes. The rod alone can cost more than $500!

What’s the moral of this story? Even if you’re an engineer, it’s ultimately less expensive to hire professionals to design and install your custom drapes. Contact us today and less us do the math!