Rhonda Bracey: At Random

When I visited a friend in Seattle a few years ago, he was housesitting a fabulous house. He showed me the upside roller blinds in the kitchen/dining area, which I thought were just brilliant for letting in light while maintaining privacy. With normal top-down blinds, you have to pull them all the way down to get privacy, and that can block out light, especially if they are block-out blinds. But with these bottom-up blinds, you pull the blind up to the height you want to give you privacy, but there’s enough space above to let in light and air.

As I needed to change the impractical slimline metal venetian blinds we had in some rooms, I looked at window treatment options that would maintain privacy, let in light, and allow the window to be open to let in fresh air, without the window treatment impeding any of those things. For the spare bedrooms, I choose vertical blinds as they fitted all the criteria.

But for the second bathroom and toilet, I had to think outside the box. Verticals, curtains, and side-opening honeycomb blinds weren’t practical for either situation, and top-down roller or Roman blinds would have impeded air flow and only given privacy if pulled all the way down.

I remembered those bottom-up blinds in Seattle! So I went searching on the internet and in local blinds stores and found that all the local retailers were unfamiliar with bottom-up roller blinds, but most had a honeycomb (aka duette, cellular) blind option that could be opened from the top or bottom — or both. In all cases, they didn’t sell many — possibly because they are fairly new to Australia, but also because they are MUCH more expensive than the usual top-down honeycomb blinds.

But that’s what I wanted.

They were installed yesterday and I’m very pleased with them. They are VERY practical. In the second toilet, they allow ventilation through the top opening of the window (the old venetians either blocked this, or rattled a lot whenever there was any wind), and can be pulled open from the top to allow privacy, while also allowing light. In the second bathroom, there’s a large fixed window with a small left-opening window at the top. This type of window is ideal for this sort of blind as the blind can cover the main window (thus offering full privacy), without covering the top section — thus allowing light and air into the room.

Thanks Craig for showing these to me in Seattle!