Natural light is one of the most appealing features that influence the interior of any home or workplace. It can make rooms look more spacious, make the colors of your décor stand out and provide different levels of light throughout the day. Whether you’re an early riser who likes to watch the sun come up or you enjoy relaxing in the evening light, natural light can be comforting and revitalising.
But one drawback to so much sunlight shining into interior spaces is the effect UV rays have on furniture. Sunlight fades the bright colors of carpets, couches, chairs, and other pieces of furniture that aren’t leather or otherwise protected from the sun. Also, exposure to sunlight for long periods of time causes damage to wood, sometimes causing permanent discoloration or deformation.
Luckily, there are a number of ways to protect our furniture from the sun’s unrelenting power. Unless you’re willing to blackout your space with thick-fabric window coverings or place your most valuable furniture outside the direct reach of UV rays, I believe, employing window blinds would be most convenient and effective. Why? Because choosing the right window blind option, can help protect sunlight-sensitive interiors without sacrificing daylight, privacy, and the view outside your windows. In this blog, I’m going to run through some window blind and fabric options that can help you achieve this.
Specialist Fabrics
Different fabric types come with different features and some of them have been implemented to minimise UV rays penetration and provide privacy without blocking the view or light from filtering through into a room. So if you’re looking for that extra protection for your furniture from sunlight you should consider a window blind with the following fabrics.
Screen fabrics are composed of a specific PVC coating. They are woven in such a way to allow light penetration and heat absorption. Mostly available with a silver backing, they reflect sunlight away and reduce heat transfer through windows by reducing solar heat gain in the room and blocking harmful UV rays that could damage your furniture. Screen fabrics are regarded as some of the most modern and effective ways to control light in your space, adding high performance to the style of your blinds. See below for our most popular screen fabric ranges.
Sheers or voiles are semi-transparent fabrics that diffuse direct sunlight, gently filtering it into a room while providing a little privacy. Giving a soft and natural feel, sheer fabrics offer great protection to furniture but also help to utilise and highlight natural light, turning your windows into an impressive room feature. Here are some of the most popular sheer fabric options:
Blinds Motorisation – Smart Home
As something of a smart home geek, I personally recommend motorised blinds to any customers or end-users. The one-off investment opens up a whole world of controls from smartphone operation to geo-fence-based automation and everything in between. Weaving your blinds into your smart home network enables you to connect your blinds with other smart devices such as smart thermometers, timers, or sun sensors that can trigger your blinds to close when a room is exposed to direct sunlight, turning them into something of a smart sunlight shield for that seamless protection for your furniture. You can also operate your blinds from your smartphone or set automation so your blinds close at a certain time of the day. For instance, if there’s a forecast for a hot, sunny day; your blinds open up automatically to wake you up and close half an hour after you left for work.
A great example of such smart window shadings is Eve MotionBlinds. This is a cutting-edge motorisation option that allows control blinds directly from a smartphone without the need for a bridge. Supported by Thread, Bluetooth, and Matter, motorised blinds can now be integrated into your smart home mesh, connecting with any smart device regardless of the brand, giving you a multitude of possibilities to upgrade your blinds beyond their original purpose.
Combining both, specialist fabrics with motorisation, would be the most effective way to ensure your blinds play a vital part in protecting any sun-sensitive piece of furniture. Check out some popular blind motorisation options below.
