Monday, January 10, 2011

Taking care of your cellular shades

Many people enjoy the convenience that comes from furnishing their homes with cellular shades. These beautiful cellular blinds are created from honeycomb-shaped pieces of material that are connected together to form the blind. Homeowners who have cellular blinds do so because they offer excellent energy efficiency due to the hollow area inside each cell, which traps air and keeps hot sun out in the summertime and warm air inside in the winter. This effect can be maximized by using double cellular shades. Cellular shades can be crafted from sheer material, which will allow filtered light to enter the room, or can be completely opaque so that darkness can be achieved in the room, which is especially important if you are using them in a bedroom or home theatre. Now that you have these state-of-the-art shades, you will want to maintain them so that they can provide years of service and beauty for you home.

The first step you can take to keep your cellular blinds looking great is to dust them regularly. You can choose to quickly go over them with a feather duster on a daily basis, and then use a vacuum cleaner with a brush attachment to remove dust weekly or bi-weekly. Some computer hounds have good luck with using cans of compressed air, used to clean the inner parts of a computer, to also blow dust off their cellular blinds.

Over time, stains can happen on the cellular shades. This calls for a bit more drastic cleaning in order to bring them back to their original look. After checking to see how the fabric responds on a small inconspicuous part of the shade, you can use warm soapy water on a damp sponge and gently blot the stained area. It is best to not rub too hard on the fabrics used in these specialty shades, because it can distress the fabric, causing it to pill, and it can also ruin the pleat in the fabric.

For more serious stains, you can determine if the following might work. After doing a small test in an unnoticeable corner, you can try removing the cellular blinds from their mounting and soaking the blinds in soapy lukewarm water in your bathtub. You may have to raise one end of the blinds up so that dirty water can run out of them. Rinse them, and hang them back up on the mounting with the blind opened up, so that they air dry. It is a good idea after they are dry to reclose them, so that the pleats are once again properly pressed into the fabric.

With proper and routine care, cellular shades can provide years of comfort and beauty to your home or office.