We recently renovated our fairly newly acquired beach holiday house.  I decided that I would go with the wooden blinds look this time around, as I'd seen some gorgeous wooden blinds at my friend's house recently and had been astounded when she told me how little it cost in comparison to what we had paid a couple of years back for new curtains.

The wooden blinds she had chosen looked good, added to the homeyness of her home and blended in with the overall look she was attempting to create, as opposed to clashing or drawing undue attention to themselves. I was certainly impressed and eager to look into using wooden blinds in our holiday home too.

Hubby wasn't so keen on the idea. I think he had another look in mind, sort of the 'balmy, swaying curtains in the window' vision.  But I eventually persuaded him to take a look at some of the blinds I was interested in and before long he too became quite open to going with the wooden blind.

The first blinds we looked at were lovely, hard wood wooden venetian blinds. They had been stained a deep rich redish brown color and were really quite stunning.  However, they weren't really what we had in mind, the color was a bit too dark for our holiday home. We'd been thinking about going with a lighter look, almost the color of pinewood.

We specifically wanted wooden venetian blinds to cover our front windows.  All along the front of our cottage smaller windows open up directly onto a beautiful view of the beach and the ocean. The afternoon sun shines directly in these windows though, and we needed to be able to easily regulate the amount of sunlight coming in during the afternoon, especially in the hot summer months.

Eventually we found just what we were looking for, lovely light wooden blinds that accentuated the windows perfectly and that allowed us to adjust the amount of sunlight that came into the room when needed. We were very pleased with our choice.

For the two longer side windows, one at either end of the room, we decided that we'd go with the wooden vertical blinds rather than sticking to all venetian blinds.  We chose blinds that closely matched the same color and grain.  Actually we were very fortunate in our choice of supplier, as the blinds shop also offered custom made blinds at no extra cost, so we were able to ask for specific wood and stain for our vertical blinds even though they didn't have any in stock.

We had to wait a week for our custom made wooden blinds to be ready but it was well worth the wait, especially as it didn't cost us any extra.  Possibly, because we were buying an entire set of blinds, they were very helpful.  One thing to note is that if you do order a largish number of wooden blinds from the same shop it does give you a bit more bargaining power than if you order a few from one place and the rest from another shop. 

Also, we didn't buy our wooden blinds on line. We looked online to get ideas of what we were looking for, but then actually went down to the local blinds shop and talked with the manager. We found that much more practical than trying to order online and not knowing if you were getting the right wooden blinds or not. It's also much easier to match colors, and to make sure you're getting the color you want, when you can actually go in and see first hand what you are ordering.

There are many different wooden blinds available on the market these days, as their popularity with homemakers seems to be on the increase. This is partly due to trends in home decor, with a bit of a flip back towards a more earthy, back to nature look coming back into fashion.

Another reason for their popularity is because there are also quite a few cheap wooden blinds for sale. Of course the more heavy hard-wood or basswood blinds are generally quite a bit more expensive than some other softer wood blinds, but the cheaper blinds are also quite nicely finished and really look quite good. You can find painted wooden blinds too. They're great as you can have them painted to match your room, or furniture, no matter what color scheme you have.

If you really want to save money, you can also always invest in faux-wood blinds. They are, in most instances, the cheapest of all yet still have that nice 'wood' look and feel to them, even if they are painted.

All in all we are very happy with our new choice of wooden blinds, and are even more happy with out little we had to outlay to complete our entire living and dining room section in our little holiday beach house. 

If you're planning on redecorating, or you need to invest in new window covering I would strongly recommend you check out the wooden blind look, as it really does add a touch of class, elegance and warmth to your room. It is usually also very easy to match your furniture, with wood, and even if you change your entire furnishings at some later date, chances are that your wooden blinds will still fit iin well!