I replaced all the cellular shades in my house with wood blinds. I think they can look nice with a certain decorating style - more contemporary or modern.

For me, I found them difficult to dust and they were installed when my house was built in the late 80's and they just screamed 80's to me, so I wanted a change.

Personally, I love the practicality of roller shades and have thought about doing them in some places in my house. I like the idea of having a decorative valance - balloon shade, roman shade etc. with the roller shade behind for privacy and light control only when you want it.

I do see cellular shades being sold everywhere, so they must still be popular!

Do I like them? Nope. I have a big cellular shade in our master bath and I've been looking for some kind of replacement. While I do like that it provides good privacy and insulation, it is hard to dust, it looks a bit dated, it's faded, and the edges are a bit ragged. If it weren't for the privacy issue I'd replace it with one of those woven wood blinds or even a 2" faux wood blind.

Thank you to onecatonedog and caroleoh for your advice on cellular blinds. I have allergies and so does the rest of my family. Would mini blinds be a better choice over cellulars due to the allergies? Cellulars are just sooo expensive, but I think they look much nicer than the mini blinds. I also like the cordless factor of the cellulars. I need privacy so that is also an issue to keep in mind. Anyone else have ideas/suggestions?

I ordered them for our last house, but within 3 years had replaced them all with wood blinds. Here are my pros and cons:

Pros: I really enjoyed the soft light filtering effect they had, especially since they were on east and west windows.

Yeah, that's it.

Cons: Had to lift up the whole blind to see outside. Couldn't "tilt" and get a partial view, while still cutting direct light. Dust magnets! (And DH is highly allergic) They looked very 80s to me (then again, so does glass block but I still see it being used everywhere). There is no way (on mine anyway) to tweak the mechanism. I think you mentioned going cordless, so maybe not an issue. I found the selections a bit limited, and really wanted wood to match the wood trim I had on the windows (chalk this up to bad initial purchase on my behalf, rather than an unanticipated con).

I love our cellular blinds. Especially in our bedroom. We have the black out ones. They do a great job of filtering out all the light at night and the morning. Then we open them up and get the use of all of our window.

They look great too. We used blinds.com I think there having a sale on right now too until the end of august. We are getting ready to order blinds for a few other rooms this weekend.

Check out http://www.sundancesayings.com/ for framed calligraphy in your house also.

Here is a link that might be useful: Calligraphy Sayings

Nicole.....so the little brown specks ARE moth poop!! We have had sooooo many moths lately & then I started noticing the brown spots...yuck!

I have cheap cellulars stacked behind a roman shade in the kitchen....great light filtering for the western sun but not attractive, IMO.

Cordless is nice but they make cordless mini blinds, too.

Smiles:)

If that is what you can afford and you like them Carolj, get them. And besides you and your family have allergies, sounds like a no brainer to me.

....Jane

scoobyruby.....I have 38 windows in this house. I am "not" dry cleaning moth poopy curtains. lol :0) I love the look of curtains....but even the sunbrella outdoor cushions are looking faded after only 4 years, so then there's the sun to consider also.

We have cell shades on all of our windows. I ordered some from JCPenney's (Bali) and some no-name brand from an online site. I wouldn't recommend the latter. They just are not the same quality and DH and I curse them every time we lower them (they don't have the weight that the Bali do and need help lowering all the way). We have blackout shades in the master. We debated about that one but are extremely happy with them. All the rest of the shades are light filtering. June is our moth season but, after two years of living w/our cell shades, I haven't noticed stains from the moths.

Our shades are only down at night so aesthetics isn't really an issue for us. If we needed light control during the day, I'd probably have gone w/some type of blinds. We have no doubt the cell shades help w/insulation given our heating bills with and w/out the shades.

This year we replace all the wide slatted blinds and plantation shutters (yes, I removed plantation shutters) with the cellular shades and we love them. We have blackout in the bedroom which is wonderfully dark and perfect for sleeping. The rest let light filter in but most of the time they are up. And that's what I love is that they take up hardly any room at all once I pull them up. We have two huge picture windows in the library and we spent a lot of time landscaping the backyard. With the plantation shutters I could only see bits and pieces of the yard because they were so heavy you couldn't open them all the way. Now I can look out the beautiful window all day.

My two cents. :)

I wouldn't call them allergy-friendly because they collect dust. They can get a kind of grayed look. Bugs can get caught in the cells too. Kinda weird to see on the sheer type. I think they're also expensive to have professionally cleaned.

Wow, mixed reviews on cellular blinds! If you don't have the cellular blinds, what do you have? I need something for privacy at night and really dislike the way roller blinds (old fashioned vinyl ones) look when pulled down. Also, what color is best in any type of window treatment? White or a cream/beige?

I'm not sure that they'd be allergy friendly either. Cellular blinds have just never appealed to me, but that's a personal preference. Do YOU like them? I agree that they seem to work more with certain decor.

We have wooden blinds on all windows except our sunroom. In that room, I have heavy (kind of a canvas type fabric) roman shades. Love them. They are never completely closed.

You'll see from a post I just did that I'm considering woven shades for our kitchen.

Oh and for our blinds, we went with white - matches the trim.

tina

I got cellular blinds from Next Day Blinds. I got them because I wanted an inside mount and only mini-blinds and cellular blinds had headers narrow enough to inside mount in my windows. I sometimes miss the tilt feature of the mini-blinds that allowed some coverage without completely blocking the view. I wish I had thought to get top-down bottom-ups in my kitchen and family room. I like the light in the morning, but sometimes feel like I am sitting in a fish bowl. So while I can't say I love them, I'm so happy to finally have something that could be mounted inside the window trim that I'm willing to make the best of them.

Totally Confused

I have had cellular blinds in many homes over the years. I always get the top down bottom up feature, as i like light without loss of privacy. The thin profile ones look the best I think, and oh you can wash them. Fill bath tub with soapy water. and dunk them a few times and them let them sit for a few minutes. empty bathtub refill clean water , repeat, then careful repeat them and tie cords around them a little loosely. sit on a towel. Once are 50-70% dry, rehang them, and pull them up halfway to keep pleats.