RV Window Blinds... Out With the worn, dusty, old RV mini-blinds...Most of our old widow shades were still functional and ok... But, combined with one that got busted up some from wind damage! when the window itself failed on the road! OOPS! :o) ... and the fact that the old, RV mini-blind style is a pain in the caboose to clean, what with having to individually wipe out each aluminum blade... ...We opted to swap out all the RV window blinds in the rig, as part of our RV Remodel. Ok... Now, that's an easy thing to plan... but the lil' buggers ain't cheap, so while the planning is easy, the execution is a mite more costly... we're making the change on the "Budget Plan". Which means, when we can fit a blind or two into our RV budget, we 'plan' to replace a window shade or two! :o) Rather than just replace the old aluminum slatted style we had...
...with new aluminum, slatted, mini-blind style shades, and have the same old hassles with cleaning... we made the choice to put in a lot better quality and function, with RV window blinds of the pleated, cellular style from Bali window shades.
Now... I'm calling these "RV window blinds"... but truth is... they're simply plain ol', regular, cellular window blinds that we ordered through the local, Lowes Home Improvement store. This first set, to replace the only one on the rig that was broken, and it's sister on the other side of the bedroom set us back $113 a piece. One other thing we found when we were looking at the samples in the store, was something we hadn't thought about... Our new RV window blinds are available in what's called a "Top Down" or "Bottom Up" style... Meaning you can either lower the Top...
or Raise the Bottom...
... and that's what we chose... our thinking is; On the usually relatively rare occasion, that we stay in the crowded confines of an RV Park... being able to lower the top a few inches will let in the light... while the angle of any "Viewer" looking from the ground will still maintain some privacy... Even in a Forest Service campsite, you'll have folks walking by on the campground road... So, with our new blinds dropped down from the top a few inches we'll have still have some light... while all those peeping Toms... or Marys will be able to see... is the ceiling! :o) Another attribute of the Bali made blinds we ordered is that the hold down brackets are metal... not the quickly failing, plastic hold downs you usually find in an RV.
There's more to RV window shades than just light and privacy! It's a mite un-scientific, but we sure seemed to notice the bedroom was a lot warmer, the first night we had these cellular window blinds up... Outside, the March temperature that night, on the High Plains of Colorado was down in the twenties... Kinda cool! One window had had no shade in place at all for a bit... the broken one having been removed and taken with us to use for getting the correct size, to order the replacements. With the new blinds in place... it struck us pretty clear that the insulating qualities they possess were surely noticeable.
I'm told they'll be easier to clean... either with a damp sponge or with a brush on a vacuum... but that'll have to wait to be seen, sometime in the future. For now, we'll just enjoy the improved function and aesthetics of our new Cellular RV window blinds... and work on the design for recovering the Valances that will be reinstalled over all the window shades!
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