That's my ritual in the summer. And, yes, it is time-consuming! Also, I wonder how much all that opening and closing is shortening the life of the blinds.

In the winter, we tend to leave most of our blinds open. In our bedroom, though, where we close them for privacy, I always forget to open them in the morning--what a cave!

Slightly off topic, but I am a historian by training, and thought you might find it funny to know that in the big Italian Renaissance villas, it could take 1-2 hours for all the shutters to be opened, which the servants did morning and night.

Well, there are people like my husband who would only open things on the weekend, otherwise, why bother?

One reason, among many, that we have very few wt's but we do have extreme privacy. To some, our rooms probably look unfinished.

Although I only have one shade to pull up, the bathroom window, I do think about all the minutes over the year spent making the bed!

Takes me longer to make the bed than open shades. Have 4 shades to open/close in the bedroom, 3 blinds to tilt open/close in the dining room as I pass through to the kitchen. The 3 in the keeping room are lifted/lowered occasionally, but generally stay in the same position. All the other shades/shutters, and cafe curtains stay in the same position all the time.

Waving at Dedtired, my old neighbor before we moved two states away and one of my kitchen inspirations waaay back in 2003! Nice to see you!

The privacy/opening and closing blinds issue is why I have those updown cellular blinds in almost every room in my house, including the master bath! I NEED sunlight but I also do not like people looking in, so almost all the shades in my house are open the top 1/3 to 1/2. I only open the shades all the way in the day if I want to see something outside at street level. I always have a view of the sky (my priority) out of every window. I feel my house is pretty much bathed in sunlight, but I can walk around my house in privacy. This means that most of my draperies are panels. I have valences in two rooms only: the 1/2 bath where we don't open the shades anyway, and the family room that has two story windows with panels and valences but we have white sheers on the bottom windows and no shears on the top windows.

I vote updown shades every time!

Living in the center of a city, shades get closed at night for privacy. And in the winter, the shades and closed curtains provide a bit of insulation for the windows at night.

During the day, I like the sunlight, so I open everything. At least, in the winter I open all the shades and drapes. In the summer, the living room windows, which receive the full force of the afternoon sun for hours, stay shaded on weekdays to help keep the room a bit cooler. Weekends, it's a toss-up between needing the sunlight in the room and trying to avoid using the A/C.

We don't use the dining room a lot, so sometime we forget about the shades in there. But pretty much all the other rooms the shades are closed at night and opened during the day. Takes less than a minute per room.

Hi Geogirl. Yes, I'm still around and so is my kitchen. The only thing I forgot to put in there is a maid and a cook. Guess that would be me!

I have this up/down shades in the den. That room does not get much sun, so I like to raise them all the way for maximum light during the day. I wish I could keep them half way up to block the view of my obnoxious neighbor across the street. If I am going away, I do leave them half up just so the house does not appear too closed up as a tip-off that no one is home.

I need WT in my living room. Can't decide what to do in there. My neighbor said she liked my Christmas tree,but I knew she had not been in my house. Then she said they could see it from her daughter's bed room. Guess I need to find some shades in there, too.

Xantippe, that's interesting! Maybe when I get a kitchen maid, she can open/close the shades, too.

Living and dining room have stationary panels. No blinds. Nothing to open or close.

Kitchen has fake roman shades. They don't go down, so nothing to do there.

Family room has a LOT of windows. There are cellular blinds (installed by previous owner) and stationary panels. The blinds on one of the windows is put down on weekend days if we're watching TV because of glare. I used to put them all down at night, but then when I'd come down in the morning, I hated that it was dark. I like coming downstairs to a bright house. I'm too tired to put them all back up before I go to bed, so now I just leave them up at night too.

Bedrooms - 2 are now guest rooms (DD is now on her own) and blinds stay up 24/7. I open the blinds in my son's room every morning (2 windows) to get him to wake up. Put them down at night when tucking him in. Master BR - blinds are usually down all week because I forget to put up early in AM before leaving for work. On weekends, I do raise them. But, there's a skylight in the bedroom so it's bright even when blinds are down.

Bathrooms - never put the blinds down in any bathroom. They all face the back of the house and I do not think the one neighbor behind me can see in. At least I hope they can't! I can't see in theirs, so I assume they can't see in mine. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Can you tell I am a sunshine junkie? I cannot stand dark rooms. I need my natural light.

I live on a cul-de-sac street, so not a lot of traffic. Yes, you can see in my living, dining and family room at night, but I don't care.

We are on one level so that helps. I don't close the shades in the sunroom and some blinds on the back side of the house stay open. We have privacy but I do not like the rooms we are in (great room, bedroom) open at night.

tina

we have blinds inside our window panes, and i like a lot of light, so i opened them all up wide.

First six weeks in this house, i kept winding the blinds open all the time and muttering to myself, " I don't know why everyone keeps closing all the dam nblinds all the time! " It was ridiculously dark inside, but i never noticed anyone actually closing them. My husband and daughter both denied messing with them.

Then i figured out that when our front loading washing machine shakes, the blinds on that side of the house slowly shake completely shut!

Balance and stabilized washing machine, mystery solved!

I live on a large wooded lot so I never close anything and thus never have anything to open. Quite a few of my windows have no window treatments at all.

And here's a good one for all you decorating enthusiasts. My living/dining room is nearly all windows - two levels of them on one side that has a loft. They have some custom made open weave drapes that are quite lovely in my opinion. One day years ago a woman stopped by and said she was the person who had built the house and wanted to know if she could stop in. She did and we had a nice chat. She mentioned that I still had the original drapes that she'd purchased for the home. Well, I still have them and the house is now 40 years old. I bet no one else here has window treatments that old.

Gibby, I don't know when the traditional shutters were first hung in our living room window, but we've been in this house 31 years and they're still there. The woven woods we hung in the master bedroom in 1981 are still going strong too.

I could have done this topic myself, and even thought about doing it a while back!

The LR is a long way to the back of the house where we have a "computer" room. The computers where we goof off and relax on. DH has his business computer in his office, so we both get on the puters back here for our morning coffee.

What's worse is the older I've gotten, it's hard to wake-up fast like I used to.

Once I have some coffee in me, I open all the shutters in the LR, utility room, DR and kitchen. The back of the house is last.

But I hate doing it! Nighttime isn't so bad though since I have to make my way from the LR to the back of the house anyway for one thing or another.

I told my dh a couple of months ago I'd like to hire someone to come in early every morning to open shutters, feed the dogs and make coffee. :)

We live in the country, so privacy is a non-issue. We only use our blinds or shades to block sun and/or insulate the windows, so many of them stay in the same position for weeks at a time.

Carrie

My brother has shades with a remote control. The shades are to block the sun. Other than that he doesn't need them because the view from his windows is the Pacific Ocean. Unless the surfers out there have binoculars, no one can see in.

I'd like to have a whole house remote for the shades, or maybe some that are set on a timer to go up and down at certain hours. I wonder if there is such a thing, not that I could ever afford them.

I kind of agree with fun2bhere, depending on what mood I'm in! Especially at our beach cottage where we get an ocean view when we open the shades! No impressive views here at home. What irks me is that I can't seem to get my kids to open their blinds in the morning, so that adds to my opening/closing "chores." And soon I'll be replacing the stationary sheers in my LR with roman shades -- 3 more things to open and close! I have two rooms with the horizontal blinds in between the window panes (which I hate) and usually I leave them closed on the bottom and open on top, sort of the same effect as having cafe curtains. My house is on a bit of a hill so if the bottom half of the window is covered, that's all we need for privacy on the first floor. And we have 15' high hedges all around our back yard, so shades on the back of the house usually stay open.

There are definitely some days when I'm tempted to leave all the shades down!

I HAVE to open our blinds as soon as I wake up, first thing I do. We live out in the semi-country, but in the back of our house, and the rest of the homes in our neighborhood, is a large pond, almost small lake, that all our homes back up too. I always get a weird feeling that someone is looking across the pond with their binoculars at night, so I close them at night. I don't mind opening and closing though. I also need them open for my indoor plants.

Fun2B, that is a good point. I like that feeling, too. On the other hand when I look out the office window in the morning I get annoyed because my neighbor's babysitter always parks directly across from my driveway, making it hard for me to get out. When I open the den windows, I see my icky across the street neighbors. What I wouldn't give for a nice view!

My mother always opened the blinds/shades when she woke up, and I do, too. If we are home, like on the weekends, we just do kitchen and LR. I will open the blinds in the BR's if I am cleaning in there.

hi, ded! Yes, a maid and cook-that's what we need!

I don't have window treatments on most of our windows. I have shutters on the bottom half of the front windows, but the others are private with no need for draperies, so we probably look unfinished to a lot of folks, too.

ded, maybe you could mention to the babysitter (or your neighbor) that you have had several close calls when you almost backed into her car by accident as you were backing out and how upset you will be if you ever actually do hit her car and how at your (our) age, we do sometimes lose focus and oh dear... heehee.

Why oh why don't we go live with your brother, ded???? I am thinking between the two of us, we could offer our cook/maid skills to him.

Cyn, to be fair, I have not mentioned to them that car is in my way. They moved in not very long ago, so I don't want to start right off as a complaining neighbor. I like your idea -- pose it as wanting to spare their car rather than saying that it's a big fat nuisance to me.

My brother's house is gorgeous, right on a cliff over the ocean in La Jolla. There's hot tub on the deck and also a fire pit. He actually loves homecooking and wishes he could find a GF who cooks. Unfortunately most hot young blondes don't cook. Well, except me of course. :)

I live in the country and the closest neighbor is a half mile away.

No way would I leave my shutters open at night. Over the years there have been several scary incidents that happened at night.

Did you all hear the story of the OK. woman (18 yr. old) who shot an intruder? She lived on a thousand or so acres.

A lot of home intrusions happen at night..in the country. We now leave our front and back porchlights on, along with our security light outside.

Oakley, I saw that story. What amazing presence of mind she had to quiet the baby with a bottle then call 911 and ask if she was within her rights to shoot.

ded..how old is your son LOL ?? My DD is a very successful HOT 29 yr old and can't find a guy that loves her home cooking...she makes apple pie...chocolate chip cookies...bread...she learned from her mama :) She loves CA and her DB is in San Diego..this sounds like a match made in heaven. c

Trail -- not my son, my brother -- and he is 60. I bet that's not what you're looking for for your daughter. He is good looking and well off, so when he kicks the bucket, she might get a very nice house (with a big mortgage). LOL

Oakley, I also saw that story. Whew. I think I would have shot first and then called 911, but she did the right thing. I think the world is better off without that creep.

Yes, it does feel safer with the shades closed.

What got me was this state has the "Make My Day" law, where you are allowed to shoot if someone enters your home. The 911 operator should have been aware of that!

Did you catch her on Dr. Phil? (I love him, lol) I was cracking up when he was trying to explain to the viewers how TX. and OK. folks kind of need their guns because of all the rural areas and hunting. Although he used "hunting" as the excuse, I knew what he was talking about but he didn't want to go there which I understood.

Two months ago, at 2a.m., I heard two gunshots outside. We had a lamp on in the LR, dogs started barking. The truck finally left about 3 or 4 minutes later, then went to our "neighbors" house and parked in the road for a few minutes also.

We were totally FREAKED out, which is why we now leave outside lights on. No sleep at all that night.

They were gone before the sheriff could even get here.

Found the shotgun shells in the road, along with two pee stains on the dirt, lol, so we think they were two drunks making their way home from God knows where.

And that's just one of the crazy incidents we've had here!

ded...hm...well I will tell her :)...probably not...one hates to marry and then hope for the demise of the newly wed loved one LOL ! You are so funny ! c

I like to shut the shades at night, at least in the winter, because the windows look like big black holes that suck a lot of light out of the rooms. It's amazing how much brighter and cozier a room feels with the lighter color of a shade covering a large expanse of window rather than a black hole.