Select Blinds

Full review

Back Story

I was moving into a townhouse. It is a rental so the last thing I wanted to do was drop a ton of money on custom blinds. That said, I’m not in college anymore and the $20 Home Depot, one-size fits all Mini-Blinds were not going to cut it either. Having never been in the market for blinds before I was kind of flying blind (pardon the pun). I saw a commercial for Blinds-To-Go; actually I saw 1000 commercials for Blinds-To-Go.  They advertised a 110% lowest price guarantee so I thought this was a great place to start. I went to their store in Totowa, NJ.  I found the process very confusing and I’m not easily confused. There are 100 different kinds of blinds and 1000 varieties/manufacturers of each kind. Anytime I changed one little thing the sales rep had to make a whole new estimate. I was in the store for 3 hours. I ended up plopping down about $300 for a 50% deposit on an order that I never really understood. I quickly realized that their low price guarantee was pretty much worthless since you had to find the exact blind to get the guarantee and given the ridiculous number of blinds this was almost impossible. The blind business seems very similar to the mattress business.  I knew there had to be a better way. I hopped online the second I got home and started my search.

Summary

I came to Selectblinds.com. It was the top ad in the sponsored section on my Google search. I was immediately impressed that they supplied the blinds for ABC Extreme Home Makeover (I’m not a regular viewer but have seen it occasionally). The site was incredibly user friendly. It was very well laid out. The first things that catch your eye are the 150% price guarantee (just as worthless as the Blinds-To-Go one). The 30% off “special” that is going on. I put that in quotes because every day is a 30% off special. A lifetime warranty, not applicable to me but it’s good to know that they stand behind their product. Finally, a Risk-Free in home trial, sweet, so if I screw up and get ones my wife hates I can return them.

The Good:

The Selection:  They have all the major types of blinds. However the selection is manageable. There are 2 or 3 types of each. Not 2 or 3 hundred. Each blind has a variety of colors to choose from.  You put in your measurements ONCE and it gives you the prices for ALL the blinds cut to that size. This made it so much easier to compare styles and types.

The Samples: Simply click off the ones you’d like to see (up to 15) and they’ll send you free samples in 5-7 days. For $5 you can get them overnighted. I was in no rush, and I’m somewhat cheap, so I went standard.  It’s really tough to judge color on the computer screen so even if you know exactly what you want and have seen the color before, get a sample. The sample will look completely different.

The Purchase: I went with the 2” Premium Faux Wood Blinds for my 4 windows and the 3 ½” Premium Textured Vertical blinds for my sliding glass doors. I was a little skeptical about measuring; since I had never done this before and I was going with an inside mount (Just for the windows). This looks a lot better but you have to be more precise. Thankfully there is a little instructional cartoon on the website that tells you the proper way to measure. I followed the instructions and all of my blinds fit perfectly! I was shocked…so was my wife. She was totally waiting to bust my chops with something like “I told you not to order those stupid things off the internet”. The blinds look great! I mean really great! They seem sturdy and have been up for a month now with no problems.

The Price: I was able to get custom blinds for 4 windows and one sliding glass door for about $226! This was less than half of what I was going to pay at Blinds To Go. Now this really isn’t a fair comparison since I definitely did not get the same thing. In fact it’s only a little bit more than the budget mini-blinds at Home Depot. The price for how good these blinds look is amazing.

The Installation: Simple. With a power drill/screwdriver it took about 5 minutes per blind. I have to admit on the first one I fumbled around with the clips that hold on the valance but it turned out to be pretty easy once I figured it out…this leads to….

The Bad

The Instructions: One negative I have on this experience is the installation instructions. They look like photocopies of photocopies. They are impossible to read and convey very little information. Thank God that installation is so easy because these directions are quite possibly the worst I have ever seen.

The Valance: The window valances are fine but the corners on the sliding glass door ones(the verticals) are not the best. It just looks a little unfinished. This could be the model I chose or maybe I didn’t assemble it right due to the awful directions. Either way it’s a minus.

Overall

I highly recommend Selectblinds.com. They delivered everything they promised and more. Some models even allow you to have your blinds in 24 hours. Make sure that the ones you select say “express production” otherwise it’s the standard 3-5 business days. I had one question while measuring for the sliding glass door. I called the 800 number, spoke with a real live person who knew the products backwards and forwards and had my answer in minutes.   Double check your measurements and order with confidence!