Blinds can become the most noticeable element of the interior, or, on the contrary, merge with the background and stay “invisible”. To choose the color of the blinds correctly, it is necessary to take into account the palette, style and proportions of the room. The color of accessories and furniture should also be noted.

In this article we won’t discuss such choice criteria as types of construction, ways of handling the mechanism, types of fastening or light transmission degree. All these topics require their own detailed articles. So here we will only discuss such an important issue as blinds selection criteria for the interior.

However, it is worthy to mention one important thing: recently, blinds with a function of a complete sunlight beams blockage, that are called blackout blinds, have become popular. According to PrizedReviews.com, these products are made with a material, treated with a special mirror composition. A room with blackout blinds stays cool even in the summer without air conditioning. Such blinds are a great choice for bedrooms or home cinemas.

What to Consider When Choosing Blinds

So, let’s talk about how to choose the color of the blinds that will match your room.
Material and Color

Blinds are made of wood, aluminum alloys, bamboo, different types of fabrics, nonwoven fabrics, straw, polymers and synthetic materials. Modern coating technologies allow to paint or laminate any material in different colors, including those that imitate textures. Moreover, there are a lot of ways of decorating: gold plating, patinating, craquelure, stitching, silver plating, press coating or photo printing, etc. That’s why blinds color doesn’t depend on what material they are made from, as wooden blinds can be painted white, and plastic ones – have graining lamination.
The variety of colors is immensely wide. Apart from other things, different effects are used when decorating blinds, such as mother-of-pearl, chameleon, metallic, gloss, matte, sparkles, etc.

Universal Colors
The traditional colors for blinds are all shades of beige, white, blue, textured colors of natural wood from straw-color, honey, different tones of nuts to cherry and dark wenge, silver grey, bronze, champagne, gold. These are the neutral colors, that are mostly chosen for decoration of walls, furniture, flooring or door trims.

Accents
Blinds of non-standard colors, for example red, green, blue, yellow, with drawings, flowers, ornaments, photos or illustrations are always the accent elements of the interior. It is important that the blinds don’t look as an alien element, so when choosing them it is important to consider the color pallet of the room, including walls, furniture and accessories.

Let’s say, you decided to have bright, noticeable blinds. If the walls are painted neutral beige, and the furniture is red, then the blue color for the blinds will be definitely inappropriate. The color should belong to the beige-red range, you can add a bit of gold or silver depending on the color of door handles, chandelier and other details. All the elements should harmoniously match in color, as it is the only way to achieve a holistic interior decoration, that won’t look heavy or tasteless.

When choosing blinds color, don’t forget about the functionality: for sunlit rooms it is better to choose dense materials.

Additional Choice Criteria
Apart from the basic rules, there is a number of additional choice criteria. They are first and foremost based on the specifics and functionality of the room, as well as it’s style, form and proportions.

Color and Side
If the windows face the sunny side, it seems rational to choose dense or dark blinds. But dark colors often don’t suit the interior or damage the room’s look. In this case it is recommended to choose blinds of cold colors, they will visually add coolness to the room – the same method helps if the interior is made in warm colors and a bit of freshness is needed.

We often live in shaded rooms: either windows are facing the north side, or buildings are standing close to each other and block the access of sunlight. In this case it is recommended to make the interior warmer, so it is better to use blinds of warm color: creamy, beige, yellow or orange.

You can put blinds of different colors in one space, but they should match the textile and color of the furniture.

Room Proportions
Room proportions should also be taken into consideration here:
If the room is small, it is recommended to choose blinds of the same color scheme as the room finish. It helps to avoid sharp borders and gives an illusion that the room is bigger than it is.

To make a big window seem narrower it is recommended to use blinds in contrasting colors. Breaking the wall into segments, you add graphic to the interior.
In a room with low ceilings blinds should be vertical and of light colors.

High ceilings will look lower if you hang a contrast curtain with a horizontal slat. In this case, curtains of two colors will help, for example, a dark lambrequin made of dark or bright vertical multi-lamellar and light horizontal blinds.

For narrow windows, it is optimal to use bright horizontal or vertical blinds (depending on the size of the room), which optically expand window borders.

If the room already has an accent wall, then curtains should be in the color of the finish, it will help avoid heavy look and won’t distract attention from the main idea.
Large, elongated semicircular and multi-faceted bay windows openings with long narrow windows are better to decorate with horizontal blinds in contrast to the finish.
Small bay windows should be curtained with vertical blinds, thus they will look bigger.

Interior Style
Each interior style requires its own color palette. For example, for the Italian classics design, with wooden furniture, the ideal choice is wooden horizontal blinds of natural colors or multi-lamellar vertical blinds, imitating heavy curtains. French classical interiors, like rococo, require wooden models, bleached with gilding, and baroque – tinted with a dark nut color or black with silvering. Here blinds with photo prints will look good – for example, with replicas of paintings by famous fine art masters.
Modern styles require their own palettes:

• White, grey, silver are universal for lofts and minimalism, so it’s better to pay attention to cheap plastic blinds.

• In high-tech, black, red and silver are acceptable, so aluminum blinds with a glossy or matte texture will be appropriate here.

• Modern and romantic styles need calm, delicate, rich, but a bit muted shades, here colored rolled fabrics or roman curtains, vertical multi-layer multi-lamellar blinds with smooth lines, as well as canvas with photos of landscapes and flowers all will look harmoniously.

• Eco-, etno-, and Scandinavian styles are reasonable to decorate with curtains of natural colors, like different variations of bamboo or wooden blinds, woven straw or wood fiber, and if you want to save money, there are plastic models with tree-style lamination.

• To keep your interior in Mediterranean style, it is reasonable to decorate the windows with fabric Roman and roller blinds in the color of the sun, sea, sky and sand, it’s easy to sew such models with your own hands.

• Art deco, pop art dictate their color for the blinds – these are necessarily saturated, clean, bright colors, sometimes in two colors, for example, white and black, very brightly colored horizontal plastic and vertical fabric and synthetic models with a graphic photo or contour contrasting pattern.

• For Provence, the ideal solution would be light colored blinds made of fabric, pastel colors with a small floral pattern, for example, a non-contrast day-night model of two differently textured materials.

Specifics and Functionality Of The Room
In offices and public spaces, it is reasonable to use blinds of calm, light colors. Beige, non-bright blue, pale-green, white, grey, ivory – these colors adjust a person to the business rhythm, don’t distract attention, delicately emphasize the brevity of the business style, like saying “nothing personal, just business”. Warm peach and pale pink colors are suitable for the women's rooms.

Meeting rooms and executive offices are better to decorate with horizontal wooden blinds in the color of the furniture, with a wide slat. This will emphasize the company’s thoroughness, respectability, status. Windows in modern business centers are often curtained with blinds with monochrome photo printing of night cities and recognizable places or company logos.

Windows in living room are reasonable to decorate with roman fabrics and roller curtains. It is also fashionable to combine models of two kinds: slats and traditional fabric blinds. In the kitchen and bathroom, you can install plastic blinds: bright, with prints or in the color of finish. Remember that it depends on the room’s size and accents. For openings into the attic, as well as if the apartment is renovated at the moment, the best choice is bright pleated curtains that can be easily made with your own hands.