When we asked readers toilet paper over or under? reader Steve was agnostic on the issue. The pressing question in his house: How should blinds be closed? “Believe me, this is a very contentious issue in my household,” he said.
I installed 2″ aluminum blinds from Hunter Douglas in my kitchen (love them), so asked the company if they had a bona fide scientific answer. And yes, now everything is illuminated!
Pros and cons of turning blinds up or down
Bobby Dill, General Manager of the Hunter Douglas Horizontal Blinds Division, provided this assessment of the pros and cons of how to angle the slats on horizontal window blinds:
Reasons to turn your window blinds up:
It really is consumer preference, although we know that turning the slats upward (front edge of the blind upward) usually provides more privacy, less light into the room, and minimizes heat transfer into the room….
Closed in the inside up direction, blinds may not have as soft an appearance, but there is greater control of daylight entering the room. Sunlight and some radiant energy will be deflected upward and away from the room. This benefit is especially relevant in places like offices, where there can be substantial energy savings derived from maximizing that amount of natural lighting in the space.
Reasons to turn your blinds down:
With that said, tilting to the front (front edge of the blind down) provides the most aesthetic benefit, but will admit more light through the small gaps where slats overlap because of the angle of sunlight on the window.
Really, it comes down to personal preferences and the particular situation. Horizontal blinds provide benefits and functionality when tilted in any position. There is no “right” or “wrong ” way go.
Thank you, Mr. Dill, for your guidance. And thank you, Steve, for the question.
Wendy M. says
I don’t have blinds now, but had them in almost every room in our last house. I certainly think it looks better to have them tilted down, but we always kept them tilted up (I’m really light-sensitive.) I think that constant struggle of aesthetics versus function was one of the reasons I was so happy to get away from having them!
cellen10 says
Tilt up for privacy! I had some neighbors a few years back that did not know this and therefore had their blinds in their bathroom tilted down. It was not a good way for me to get to know my neighbors.
lynda davis says
And, I will add, if you have windows in a basement and a deck or a porch looks down on the windows, then you would want the blinds tilted down. We have shutters, and this is what we did. When in doubt, turn the lights on in the room, go outside at night and see which way is best for privacy.
Kersten says
This gets attention at our house too since the bed sits right under the window. If the blinds are not tilted up at bedtime, I am woken up with a sharp beam of light in my eye as soon as the sun is up. Not good. The other quandary is inside mount or outside mount. DH is adamant about outside mount (luckily the bedroom are outside mount! Otherwise the sun would sneak around the edges!)
Rudy says
Slightly up in the day, full down at night. Slightly up seems to direct the light off the usually white ceiling. Lighter but still private. I find slightly down in the day makes a room depressing which is odd even to me.
BungalowBILL says
I think it depends on where your neighbors are coming from. If you live in a ranch and your neighbors have a 2 story, I tilt them up to give privacy. If your house is raised and people are looking in from ground level, then I tilt them down.
midmichigan says
People always peek out so it depends on how tall you are.
virginia says
Happy to report that I have no blinds in my life anymore. When I did, definitely tilted down. Wish I had that first kitchen! Classic.
miyapiya says
I am picky about this and here’s why. Over 30 years ago I worked as a “housekeeper” (aka maid) at a ski resort in Keystone, Colorado. We were trained how to clean everything to a T and one thing we had to do was turn all the blinds in the condos ‘inside up”, or tilting up. The reason they gave us at that time was so the sun would not fade the carpeting. We also had to put the toilet paper roll on with the paper coming over the roll and we folded the edge into a pretty v-shape. I still use the cleaning tips they taught me but I won’t go into all that……
Mary Elizabeth says
Good morning, Mr. Kim and RetroRenovation fans! A good early morning subject, indeed, as it “sheds light” on yet another practical dilemma–to tilt up or to tilt down? My opinion is it doesn’t matter one bit if the blinds are all the way closed, at which time they look better tilted downward. However, when they are partly open, the light and privacy issues prevail, as stated by Mr. Bobby Dill. (Have you thanked your parents lately for not naming you Basil Dill and your sister Rosemary Dill?)
All that talk about upward or downward tilting blinds reminds me how happy I am to have all washable fabric shades in my ranch house. I used to have mini-blinds in my old kitchen, and much as I liked the look and flexibility of them, they were constantly (no matter which way they tilted) getting covered with dust and grease. The blinds in the other rooms didn’t get greasy, but they had some kind of electro-static thing going on, and they were dust and pollen magnets. I tried three different cleaning implements to keep them clean, and none were totally effective.
My fabric shades do get dusty, but I can roll them nearly all the way down and run one of those lint rollers (for pet hair and stuff on clothes) over them to get them clean. I have had them for three years now, and I have not had to wash them yet, but I know I can do it if they become very dirty. The only drawback is that there are three basic settings, open, half open or closed, and they can’t be adjusted to allow for both light and privacy. In the city or a crowded suburb, this might be a problem. But here in the woods in Connecticut, it doesn’t matter that much.
Mr Kim says
I write from another country, from another continent, English isn’t even my third language and yet… Toilet paper and blinds? I did think about it many times, and so lots of people around me O_o It must be one of those truly universal things that speak about «Humankind is One». Well, that and the insistence of some mothers/grannies about you wearing clean underwear when you go on a travel…
Carol says
Oh how I love this website! Not only is the website fabulous, but we all get to read the wonderful comments like the one from Mr. Kim.
pam kueber says
I agree. You all make is SO FUN!
Grisel Levene says
I so agree with your thoughts! Just love Mr. Kim’s reflections on our cultural sameness :+)