How faux wood blinds work
Slats on a ladder of cords, tilted by a wand and lifted as a set.
A faux wood blind is a stack of horizontal slats held by thin cords that run down each side. Turning the wand rotates all the slats at once, so you can aim daylight at the ceiling and keep it off a television screen without losing the light altogether. Lifting the set gathers the slats at the top and leaves the window clear.
The slat itself is a composite: wood dust mixed with vinyl and pressed into shape. From a few feet away it looks like painted wood, because that is what it is imitating. Up close it is heavier and smoother than real wood, and it does not have grain unless the manufacturer has embossed one into it.
Where faux wood does best in a South Florida home
Anywhere damp, which here is more rooms than people expect.
The reason faux wood exists is moisture. A real wood slat sitting in humid air takes some of it on, swells unevenly and bows, and once a slat has bowed it stays bowed. Bathrooms are the obvious case. Kitchens are the one people forget, because a window over a sink gets both steam and splashing.
In a house that runs the air conditioning hard, the glass itself often carries condensation in the morning, and the bottom slats sit right against it. Faux wood does not care.
That is also why it is the usual choice for a laundry room, a garage window and anywhere in a home close to the water, where the air is damp before anybody has turned a tap on.
What you choose
Slat width, color, and whether the set is mounted inside the opening or on the wall.
Two inch slats are the standard and they suit almost everything. Two and a half inch slats mean fewer of them across the window, so more glass shows when they are open and the stack is shorter when they are lifted, which is worth having on a tall window. On a small bathroom window the difference is not visible.
Color is mostly whites and off-whites, because that is what matches trim, with stained finishes for rooms that want to look like wood. The last choice is the mount.
Inside the opening looks neater and needs enough depth to clear the glass; on the wall above it covers an opening that is not square and blocks more light at the edges. We measure the depth and tell you which one your window will take.
Motorized faux wood blinds
A motor can both tilt the slats and lift the set, which is worth having on a window above a kitchen counter where reaching the wand means leaning across the worktop. It also removes the lift cord. See how motorization works.
Pairings
What people pair them with
Very few windows end up with one thing on them, and the combinations below are the ones that come up most.
The natural comparison is real wood blinds, which look better and weigh much less but cannot go anywhere damp. Plenty of houses use both: faux wood in the bathrooms and the kitchen, real wood in the living room and bedrooms, in matching colors so the house looks like one decision rather than two.
If the room needs to go properly dark, blinds are not the answer on their own, because light passes the slat edges however tightly they are closed. A blackout roller shade does that job, and so does a blackout lined drapery panel hung over the blind.
A word on what they will not fix. Faux wood stops the sun but does little about heat, because a slat is thin and no air is trapped behind it. On a window that makes a room genuinely hot, a cellular shade is the tool for that, and some houses run blinds in front of one.
Cord safety is worth raising if there are small children in the house. A corded lift is the standard fitting and it can be made cordless instead, where the bottom rail is simply pushed up and pulled down by hand. It costs a little more and removes the hazard entirely.
The rest of the blinds we make are real wood blinds and vertical blinds , and we will bring samples of whichever ones suit the room.
Before you book
Questions about faux wood blinds
Anything not answered here gets answered at the appointment, and it costs nothing to ask.
Do faux wood blinds look cheap?
Not from inside the room. At a normal viewing distance a good faux wood slat is hard to tell from painted wood, and in white, which is what most people choose, there is nothing to tell apart. The difference shows most in stained finishes, where real grain reads differently than a printed one.
Are they heavy?
Heavier than real wood, which matters on a wide window. Past about six feet of width the weight starts to be noticeable when you lift the set, and we will usually suggest splitting it into two blinds on one headrail so each half is easy to raise.
Can they be cleaned?
Yes, and easily, which is one of the better arguments for them. A damp cloth is fine, and so is a mild cleaner, because the slat does not absorb water. Real wood has to be dusted dry.
Will the white turn yellow?
Good faux wood has ultraviolet inhibitors in the material for exactly this reason, and a quality slat on a Florida window holds its color for years. The cheapest vinyl slats do yellow, and that is one of the places where the price difference is a real difference.
How long do they take?
Less than 30 days from your order, like everything else we make. The install is usually one visit of a few hours.
I'd like to explore my options
Let's make your home feel complete. We will reach out and help you get started.
