I was sent a blind from Make My Blinds for the purposes of this review and to spare my neighbours
It’s been about three months now since I had to take my bedroom curtains down because they smelt of bolognese.
I’m not quite sure what happened – smells from the kitchen I presume – but every time I went in my bedroom I was noticing this horrible old food smell. I changed the sheets, I made sure there were no ‘gifts’ from the cats decomposing under the bed, but I couldn’t shift it. I sniffed about, and traced it back to the curtains. I took them down, washed them, but it was still there.
Fortuantely I hated the curtains anyway – they were a ‘temporary’ measure when we moved in two years ago – so I took it as a sign from the universe that it was okay to sell them at a car boot sale to a nice lady who was going to cut them up for something.
I’ve not minded too much being without curtains, because I love having the window open and feeling the breeze on my face and waking up to the sunshine and the sound of the birds. It has been lovely and bright without curtains and I’ve liked not having vast widths of fabric breaking up the clean lines.
Over the last month though, as the sun has been coming up earlier, it has been catching me on the face at about 5am, it a kind of intrusive, burny way, which isn’t so idyllic.
I also have a bright street light outside my bedroom, which has been a bit annoying, plus my bedroom window is pretty much the full width of my room and is at the front of the house, so probably not ideal for the neighbours.
This is what it looked like without the curtains:
I may have been confused as to what was meant to be the focus of this picture.
I’ve been umming and ahhing then about what to do next.
The shape and size of the window means that ready made curtains don’t fit, and the prices I had for having curtains made to order made me do a little sharp intake of breath and think about all the other things I could spend the money on, like wine and Wotsits. THEN I saw that Make My Blinds was looking for bloggers to review their custom made blinds – the second sign! The universe was really doing an excellent job of helping me to replace my curtains.
I don’t know why I hadn’t thought about a blind for my bedroom, as we had blinds made to fit just about every other room in the house when we moved in. A blind probably wouldn’t soak up bolognese smells and with slatted blinds I’d solve my issue of wanting the window open, because I could just slant the blinds to direct the breeze onto my face. Hoorah!
Make My Blinds has masses of different blinds to choose from – roller blinds, vertical blinds, conservatory blinds – let’s just say ALL OF THE BLINDS. I went for a simple white, faux wood slatted blind as I wanted something neutral that would be versatile if I ever wanted to change the decor of the room. At the moment my bedroom is the most minimal room in the house but should I ever want to jazz it up I can now sleep sound in the knowledge that my blinds won’t clash, which I’m sure is something that keeps a lot of people awake at night.
Make My Blinds can make a blind to fit just about any size window – just take your measurements and off you go. You can get free samples before you buy if you’re not sure which blind you want to go for, they come with a four year guarantee, and Make My Blinds has an ‘excellent’ rating on Trustpilot – currently an average 9.6/10 from 632 reviews.
Although the blinds are very easy to fit and come with fittings and instructions, I did get someone in to fit mine for me, mainly because the window is so wide that the blind is quite heavy, and I wouldn’t have been able to lift it and fit it by myself. It only took about half an hour though, start to finish, even though my blind is a big one.
I went upstairs to take a look once it was finished and I was really blown away by the difference it made to the whole room. I was worried I would lose a lot of light, but even with the blind fully down it’s still light when you open the slats and just dark enough at night when they’re closed. I don’t close them fully because I like the fresh air and some natural light in the morning and the slatted blind gives me much more control over this than curtains would.
My bedroom looks like a proper grown-up finished room now, rather than a room in a student house where the sheet you normally have pinned at the window has fallen down.
Belle says the blind makes my bedroom look like an AirBnB, which I like because the whole idea of keeping my bedroom minimal is creating that tranquil, hotel vibe, where you go there just to sleep without too many other distractions. I love the crisp, cleans lines of the blind, and how much control I have. I’ve already found the perfect angle for the slats that means I get the nighttime breeze without the annoying street light or the hot sun on my face in the early hours.
If you’re looking for new blinds then I would happily recommend Make My Blinds.
Check out the full range of blinds at Make My Blinds.
