Control Options for Wood Blinds
Most traditional wood blinds use cords to raise, lower, and tilt the wood slats, but improvements in design have allowed manufacturers to give consumers more wood blind control options. Popular manufacturers like Hunter Douglas have created options that maximize safety, aesthetics, and convenience.
In general, wood blinds come in three different options for control:
- Traditional cord control
- Cordless
- Motorized Tilt
Most manufacturers still produce wood blinds that use conventional cord control to lift, lower, and tilt the slats. These models most closely resemble old plantation shutter and blinds and capture the elegance commonly associated with traditional wood blinds. Like other conventional blinds, cord-controlled wood blinds require manual pulling and shifting of strings and cords in order to raise or lower the blinds or tilt the slats to control the light.
Cords can, however, pose problems. Not only can the be unsightly as dangling strings when the wood blinds are fully raised, they can also pose safety hazards to children and pets. For this reason, Hunter Douglas, one of the largest manufacturers of quality window shades and blinds, has created a cordless option. Although there may still be short cords for decorative purposes, these blinds are controlled by manually raising or lowering the bottom bar of the wood blinds. In fact, these cordless wood blinds are so easy to manipulate, that you can raise them with just a touch of your finger. In most cases, there are still cords for controlling the tilt, but they are usually very short and pose little to no safety threat.
Cordless wood blinds provide peace of mind and ease of use, but some companies offer even greater convenience with motorized options. In order to maximize your control and comfort, wood blind manufacturers have built motorized control options for wood blinds that allow you to manipulate the slat tilt from across the room. This is the perfect option for windows where the controls are difficult to reach. Motorized options for wood blinds are only available to control the tilt of the slats and are not available to control the lift or lowering of the shade.