Bedroom Blinds

Bedrooms ask more of a window covering than any other room. You want it dark enough to sleep, private at night with the light on, and you still want the window to work like a window during the day.

Here's how to get all three.

Start with which way the window faces

This decides more than the fabric does.

  • East facing — direct sun at sunrise. In a New Zealand or Australian summer that's before 6am. Blockout fabric, outside mount.
  • West facing — harsh late afternoon sun and heat. Blockout, and a lighter colour will reflect more heat than a dark one.
  • North facing (south in the northern hemisphere) — steady light most of the day. Semi-blockout is often enough unless you sleep during daylight.
  • South facing — the coolest, dimmest aspect. Fabric matters less; warmth matters more.

"Our home gets east and west sun, so blockout was essential — but with the zebra style we can make them partial blockout if we want."
— Zoe G.

The privacy problem nobody warns you about

Daytime privacy and night-time privacy are different problems, and most people only think about the first.

During the day, it's brighter outside than in, so a sheer or filtering fabric gives you privacy while you keep the view. At night that reverses. Your room is the bright side, and anything that isn't dense enough will show shapes to anyone outside.

This is where a zebra blind earns its place in a bedroom. Slide the layers to filtering during the day and keep your view. Slide them closed at night and the room is private. Curtains can't do the first half at all — they're either open or shut.

Getting a genuinely dark room

Fabric is only half of it. The other half is how the blind is mounted.

Choose an outside mount. An inside mount sits within the reveal and looks neat, but it leaves a gap down each side, and in a bedroom that gap is exactly what wakes you up. An outside mount extends past the frame and covers it.

Go wider than you think. 50mm each side is our baseline, and a bedroom is the room to exceed it. There's no rule stopping you, and a wider blind also makes the window look larger.

Run past the sill rather than stopping level with it.

Being straight with you: no roller-type blind gives a pitch-black room, because it hangs on brackets and brackets leave gaps. Blockout fabric with a generous outside mount gets you dark enough to sleep properly. If you need absolute darkness, layer curtains over the top.

Warmth

Bedrooms are usually the coldest rooms in a New Zealand house, and often the least heated.

A zebra blind helps more than most people assume, because it isn't a single sheet — it's a continuous loop of fabric running down the front and back up the rear, so when it's down you have two layers with a pocket of air between them.

But we'll be honest about the limit. The bigger factor is air escaping around the edges, and for pure warmth a floor-length lined curtain on a tight track still does more. The best answer in a genuinely cold bedroom is both: blind for the day, curtains drawn over it at night. We wrote about that in detail here.

Children's rooms

Two things matter.

Daytime naps need blockout, not semi-blockout. A toddler who won't sleep at 1pm is often just a lighting problem.

Cord safety is not optional. Your blind comes with a chain safety clip that screws to the wall so the chain runs taut and can't form a loop. Fit it. It takes a minute. Since 2008, eight young children in New Zealand have died after becoming entangled in window covering cords, and the Government is making safety standards mandatory for new corded window coverings. Fit the clip even if you don't have small children — visitors and future occupants count. A motorised blind removes the chain entirely, which is worth considering for a nursery.

Practical details

  • Maximum 2400mm per blind. Wider windows split, priced on total square metres, so it costs no more.
  • Manual chain or battery motor — no wiring.
  • 24 month warranty on parts and fabric.
  • Give us the actual window measurement. We deduct 5mm ourselves on inside mounts, so don't deduct anything yourself.

Next steps

Order the fabric catalogue — bedroom colour is the one people most often change their mind on once they see samples in the actual room.

Read the measuring guide — especially the outside mount section, which matters more in a bedroom than anywhere else.

More on blockout fabric if darkness is your main concern.