Welcome back to another blog at the Budget Blinds of Scottsdale & Fountain Hills. It’s almost the New Year, and if you’re like most Americans, you have a list as long as your arm of resolutions and things you’ll do better in 2024. Eating better, moving more, keeping your garage clean and tidy. Those types of things. While we can’t offer any advice about making healthier meals at home, we can offer ten pro tips to keep your window treatments in tip-top shape. Always remember, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, so follow this advice proactively, and when 2025 hits, your window treatments will be just as grand as today.

10 Pro Tips for Window Care

1. Regular, Gentle Cleaning Rituals

In Arizona, dust is huge, so make it a part of your regular cleaning routine. Making a cleaning ritual goes a long way to ensuring you stay on top of it. Whether it’s dusting, taking curtains off and washing them, spot cleaning, or using some elbow grease, soap, and water, make cleaning your windows a part of your routine. When you commit to cleaning up little by little as needed, you’ll be able to avoid big cleaning jobs, for the most part.

Need help cleaning your window coverings? We got you covered.

2. Professional Dry Cleaning (as Needed)

Sometimes, cleaning does require a heavier lift than what you have available, or maybe the fabrics installed are particular. Crushed velvet, tapestry fabrics, furs, and delicate synthetic fabrics like (but not limited to) rayon, taffeta, satin, suede, and brocade all need dry cleaning for proper care. Get your window treatments professionally dry-cleaned as needed to keep them looking as glamorous as the day they were first put up. Finding a dry cleaner you like can be a headache, but it doesn’t have to be expensive or difficult to ensure your fabrics get the proper care, just like your clothes.

3. Careful Vacuuming

Some window treatments can be cleaned with gentle, careful vacuuming. If you have either panel track shades, roller shades, or cellular shades, you can use a soft brush vacuum attachment to run along the window treatment and do effective dusting. Just be careful about it! Picking up your upright Dust Destroyer MaxPro for Pets and running it along your shades will do more harm than good. If you don’t have the right attachment for it, don’t risk it.

4. Inspect for Wear and Tear

This is an easy one! As a part of your regular cleaning routine, make sure you take a moment to inspect your curtains for stains, blinds for damage, a stitch coming undone, or anything out of the ordinary. Window coverings from Budget Blinds are made to last, but wear and tear over time is to be expected.

5. Repairs as Needed

After you’ve done your regular inspection, perform any repairs as needed. It might be as simple as fixing a crack in a slat in a set of shutters or blinds or restitching a blind. Tend to it right away before it becomes a bigger problem. The sooner damage is recognized, the easier it is to fix while it’s still minor, and the less likely you’ll have to replace the whole thing.

6. Sunlight Management

Now, this one’s a tough one for Arizona, we know. Your window treatments are designed to protect your interiors from the sun, taking a beating UV-wise, which is what they are made for. But if you want to keep your window coverings looking wonderful, consider how much UV they are taking. For instance, if you have drapes or curtains, making sure you have closed blinds behind them will stop them from getting sun-bleached.

7. Rotate with the Seasons

Another way to manage the amount of UV your window coverings are absorbing is to rotate with the seasons! Some window coverings are better insulators than others, making them a great choice in winter or summer. The other big benefit of rotating with the seasons is limiting the amount of UV exposure and wear and tear the window coverings endure, keeping them beautiful for a long time to come.

8. Store Properly

With rotating coverings with the seasons comes storage. Storing window coverings in an improper way is just as likely to get them damaged as leaving them up year-round. Make sure you clean them before packing them away, keep them out of direct sunlight, and follow any instructions on the material themselves.

9. Avoid DIY Stain Removal

So, we’ve talked a lot about making cleaning your coverings a part of your routine. Here’s something you should avoid: DIY stain removal! If you have small stains, and you know the material, and what caused it? Ok, maybe you can, but proceed with incredible caution. Many people will attempt a DIY stain removal solution and end up with damaged curtains. It’s not a good look.

10. Proper Handling

Always make sure you are handling your blinds properly. Whether you are taking them down for cleaning or even just operating them using the attached wand controls – make sure you are handling and using your window treatments correctly. For the vast majority of folks, their window treatments get installed and then are rarely messed with aside from use, cleaning, and moving around, so be careful when you’re doing those things, and your window coverings should stand up to the test of time.

Follow these ten tips, and your window coverings will look their best all year round! Need a new set of coverings to match your grand vision? Talk to the trusted professionals at Budget Blinds of Scottsdale and Fountain Hills for more help! Book a free personalized consultation with our design experts to transform your vision!

Schedule Your Free In-Home Consultation Today!