Faux Wood Blinds – A Great Alternative To Wood

When it comes to the world of home furnishings, wood will probably always reign supreme. After all, the look and texture of wood has a certain romanticism to it that is almost mystical. It makes us feel as if we are closer to nature, and has a warm calming effect in any home. There are, however, a few problems with excessive use of wood, which is why faux wood blinds can be a great alternative for those that want to achieve the atmosphere that wood can provide.

For starters, wood is particularly expensive. Not only that, but it getting more and more so every year. Fitting your house out with wooden blinds can really do some major damage to your bank account balance, and in these troubling times, many of us just can’t afford that extra financial pressure. Secondly, our love of wood, coupled with our ever expanding population, is causing some serious damage to our environment. We are consuming lumber at a faster rate than we can grow trees, and as a result our forests are dwindling, and I don’t need to tell you that we need these trees to survive.

If either of these two issues are a problem for you (and they really should be), then the use of faux wood window blinds in your home will really be a great help. The technology that is used in creating this material has come forward in leaps and bounds in recent years, and the products available now look just as good as the real thing, and have many added benefits on top of natural wood.

faux wood blindsFaux wood is primarily made in one of two ways. One way is called “composite wood” which is basically a material that is manufactured using part hardwood and part polymer. Composite wood is the more expensive of the two types, but looks and feels a lot more like the real thing. The other option is vinyl, also known as pvc. This material is a lot cheaper to manufacture and therefore less expensive to buy. It doesn’t look quite as good as composite wood, but if it’s cheap faux wood blinds you are after, this is the material that you want to look for.

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The benefits of faux wood over the real thing are many. For example, real wood, if not treated correctly, will crack and warp over time, especially if it is in an area that is installed in damp environments. Faux wood is a much hardier option, and will also not fade from the suns harmful UV rays. A faux wood blind is much easier to clean as well. With wood, you need to be careful when using water to clean your blinds, but faux wood will not be damaged by excessive use of water.

There are a few different styles of blinds available in faux wood, and the type you choose will depend entirely on your home and your own personal tastes. In the right conditions, faux wood roller blinds can give a tremendous atmosphere to your room, providing it with a dappled light effect while still giving you the privacy you need. Another type of blind that is very popular is shutters that can be used either on the inside or the outside of your windows.

How to Clean Faux Wood Blinds

Faux Blinds – Fake It Till You Make It

The word “faux” orginally comes from France, and means “fake” or “false”. This term is used in the English language quite extensively, for example the phrase “faux fur” refers to womens fashion, and is used to describe clothing that is made to look like animal fur, but is in fact not. There are two reasons why faux fur is so popular; firstly, it is much cheaper than real animal fur, and secondly, the thought of wearing dead animal skin, for many people, is too much to contemplate. It is these same two reasons that faux wood has become so popular in recent times. Wood is a very expensive material, especially when you are looking at fitting out an entire house with wooden blinds. The use of wood is also becoming more and more an environmental problem, as forests are being chopped down to try and keep up with our voracious appetite for the stuff. We can’t grow the trees quickly enough to keep up with the demand.

The technology used to create faux wood is getting better and better with each passing year. Many of the products now on the market are indisitinguishable from real wood, unless you physcially go up and feel them. There are a few different materials that are used in the construction of faux wood. Particleboard is a popular material, which is made up of wood particles that are moulded together into a solid board using resin. The boards are then coated with a veneer that gives it the appearance of real wood. faux blindsParticle board, while making for extremely cheap faux wood blinds, is not the most hardy of materials to use, espcially if you will be installing the blinds in areas that are prone to moisture. After prolonged exposure to damp, particle board will start to crumble and split.

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The next step up from particle board is a material called hardboard, Hardboard is created in much the same fashion as particle board, but is compressed at high temperatures, making it a lot more sturdy and capable of withstanding damp environments. Usually the fibers are condensed at such a high density that no further bonding is needed, however some manufactruers will still use a resin in their hardboard products, making them even stronger. Hardboard is not only used to make faux wood blinds, but is also a popular material in the creation of furniture.

Finally, we have veneer, which is basically lots of very thin strips of wood compressed together and bound using resins or adhesives. This material is generally considered to be much stronger and straighter than normal ljmber, and this makes it a perfect material to be used in faux blinds.

Which material you decide on will depend mostly on the budget that is available to you, but I would definitely recommend going a step above particle board if you are able to, you’ll thank me in the long term. Faux blinds are hugely popular, and manufacturers have mimicked wood blinds of every style. Anything that you can get in wood can be purchased at a much cheaper cost as a faux wood blind.