Blacking out a bedroom - help please !

RavingMad

motomoto wrote: »

raving mad - do they make the room completely dark ? if you don't mind me asking - how much did they cost ? did you have to install them yourself ?

thanks

Not completely dark; there's a bit of seepage from the sides of the blinds but the curtains sort that out

Can't remember the exact cost, possibly £260 for 4 panes fully fitted

Kaye1

Blackout blinds from Dunelm. I fitted them myself. Needed a hacksaw and screwdriver. The children sleep really well, the room is pretty dark.


Blinds cost about £20.

melanzana

A set of dark curtains AND.....

Two black eye masks ( like you get on a long haul airplane), one over the other does the business. No leakage of light anywhere.

Cost a couple of quid in the pound shop.

My neighbour is a nurse and uses them all the time when sleeping during the day when she is working nights. With the dark curtains aswell. No messing around with fitting blinds.

But each to their own!

Norman_Castle

Spammer...................................................................................^^^^

jenniewb

I had problems with trying to find affordable black-out blinds; I live in a studio flat, it's thin and long with 5 massive long windows to cover (each window is the same size as a normal 2x2 window, well all but 1) I worked out costs a few years back and it was around £300 to get black-out curtains for all the windows, no doubt the price is higher now...


I tried a few sleep masks but didn't like the pressure on my eyes and would end up not being able to sleep due to the discomfort no matter how many sleeping pills I took.


I then scoured Amazon and found a sleep mask made of fabric (so moves when I move and doesn't fall off when I turn on my side) and also got a moulded type so they bulge out over my eye lids. Others said the mask over-heated when worn but mine is fine and I never wake up with sweaty eyes or a soaked forehead and I quite often get night sweats.
Here is the link http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/B0038KN272/ref=cm_cr_dp_hist_three?ie=UTF8&filterBy=addThreeStar&showViewpoints=0

thestens

We had a very big window in our last house and bought a blackout blind off the internet, wasn't very expensive and did the trick with thick curtains. Somebody recommended fastening the sides of the blind to the window frame using florests magnets ( round, about the size of a 10p) for a closer fit. Keep meaning to get some and try it myself.

beaker141

Ikea do a range of blackout roller blinds, I've put them in an east facing room and it works pretty well - there is leakage though around the edges as you have to allow at least a cm for the mechanism and clearance. They also didn't have 1 wide enough, so I have 2, separated by the sideopener so you could have 1 open if you wanted the window open for example.


Those perfect fit blinds look good though - probably expensive - but maybe worth it.

moneyistooshorttomention

I had blackout blinds and curtains over them on my bedroom window at my last house. My definition of curtains = properly done ones (ie width of 1.5 - 2 times the window width/long enough/with linings) and I tend to pick curtains in darker thicker material anyway.

All of that added together did reduce light coming into my bedroom a lot compared to what many other people have coming in.

However, it didn't 100% do the trick and there was still a tiny bit of light coming in through the curtains and seepage round the edges of the curtains.

The only thing I have ever come across that does a 100% job at keeping every last bit of light out is the type of window shutters they have on windows on the continent. I've been in a bedroom in Italy where there literally wasn't so much as one single smidgen of light coming and I couldn't see my hand in front of my face in the middle of the day. That particular flat had those metal roll-down type blinds on the windows.

I'm not sure how well more traditional wooden type shutters would work - but would imagine that they would do the trick (possibly backed up by the type of curtains I use).