Whether you’re looking for a retreat at the end of your busy days or catnap between tasks, setting the right ambiance can be as easy as drawing the window curtains, that is, if they are blackout! Specially designed for insulative purposes, blackout fabric is a multi-layered tight-woven fabric fortified with a thermal coating. Whether you prefer the breezy and pristine appeal of white roman blinds and curtains or the whimsiness of patterned window treatments, blackout drapes are available in various colors and styles, making them the most stellar performers both functionally and visually! In this blog, we will walk you through the top five reasons why you should invest in blackout curtains.
Top Five Benefits of Blackout Curtains
Even though blackout window curtains might not be your first port of call, you will see why they ought to be, even if you are on a shoestring budget. They do a lot more than just block light. Whether you are setting up a cozy nursery, a quiet office room or a private bedroom, blackout curtains will prove to be a fantastic addition because of these benefits:
1. Total Blockage of Incoming Light
The primary feature of blackout curtains is their ability to block light. They can turn a well-lit room into a cozy cocoon easily and instantly, giving you a dark and comfortable atmosphere to slide into slumber or just have some private moments to unwind in isolation. There are three ways of treating your windows with blackout curtains, each with varied degrees of room darkening:
- Blackout Drapery Fabric: With the best light-blocking ability, blackout curtains can block 95-100% of incoming light and make your room completely dark.
- Dimout Drapery Fabric: These curtains block 70-90% of incoming light, perfect for rooms that you want to darken but retain some visibility.
- Blackout Lining: This is a lining fabric that has all the properties of blackout drapery fabrics. It can be used behind non-blackout treatments to make them blackout. The performance of such blackout curtains will partly depend on the weave, palette and thickness of the face fabric.
2. Reduction of Noise
While the biggest feature of blackout curtains is their light-blocking ability, they can also help reduce unwanted noise that may disturb your child’s nap sessions or your intense work hours. Its multiple layers of interwoven fabric can considerably muffle the noises coming towards it. This feature works both ways – they dampen the noise from the external environment and also absorb jarring sounds and echoes inside the house. Consider floor-to-ceiling made-to-measure curtains in blackout fabric for bigger coverage, which means more sound absorption!
3. Thermal Insulation
Windows typically account for 10-25% of thermal energy loss in a room, which may vary depending on the size of the windows. The thermal coating coupled with a thick weave in blackout curtains can insulate your room to a great extent and help you save up to 25% of your energy losses. They can help your HVAC system to preserve the ideal indoor temperature throughout the year. This also means a significant reduction in your internal air conditioning expenses and more energy savings – a step further towards sustainable living! Further, due to the high heat conducting property of dark colors, opt for white curtains or blinds in blackout fabric to further support the cause.
4. Complete Privacy
Privacy is a non-negotiable need for bedrooms and kids’ rooms. When you get busy in your personal space, you don’t want any prying eyes of nosy neighbors peeping inside through your windows. While any curtain fabric can give you privacy to some level, blackout curtains can completely block visibility through it, giving you a room that is not only cozy but also completely isolated from the outside. Its thick fabric ensures that not even your silhouette is visible from the outside during the night when the room is lit – total privacy throughout the day and night!
5. Shielding of Indoor Furnishing
Long and direct exposure to sunlight can fade your furnishing and damage your fabric accessories with time. So if you have a costly piece of furniture, a vibrant area rug, and fabric accessories like pillows closer to your windows, you might want to protect them from premature weathering. Blackout curtains shield your indoors from those harmful UV rays and significantly extend their life!
While there is much more to love blackout curtains for, we found these five qualities the top reasons to consider them for any home, especially for these rooms:
- Kids’ Rooms and Nurseries: Perfect for little babies and toddlers, blackout curtains make your nursery nap-ready around the clock for their frequent dozes.
- Bedrooms: Blackout curtains provide complete privacy along with creating a sleep-friendly environment.
- Office Rooms: Blackout curtains can insulate your office space from external noise, making it conducive to a distraction-free work environment.
- Media Rooms: Blackout curtains make your media rooms pitch-dark for an immersive viewing experience.
Conclusion
We hope that our blog has helped you get a clearer perspective on how investing in blackout curtains can elevate your lifestyle significantly. Coming with a range of benefits like room darkening, noise reduction, effective insulation, complete privacy, and control of sun damage, blackout curtains are a must for your bedrooms, media rooms and nurseries. However, their long list of functional benefits does not come at the cost of aesthetics as they are available in various design options to complement any decor style, whether you prefer solid-colored or striped roman shades or curtains. The one window treatment needed in light-sensitive rooms is blackout curtains, good to work as standalone or as overtreatments on your current window coverings like non-blackout or sheer window treatments. Transform your room from ‘bright like a sunny day’ to ‘dark like a new moon night’, in no time!