Living Room Blinds

The living room is the one window you don't want to cover.

It's usually the biggest in the house, it's often where the view is, and it's the room people see when they visit. But you also want privacy from the street, and you'd like to watch a screen without fighting glare.

That combination is what zebra blinds were built for.

Keeping the view is the whole point

Curtains are binary. Open, and the street sees in. Closed, and you've given up the daylight and the view you paid for.

A zebra blind is one continuous loop of fabric with alternating sheer and solid stripes on two layers. Slide them so the stripes align sheer-on-solid and you get filtered daylight and a view out, while people outside can't see in clearly. Slide them solid-on-solid for full privacy.

You're adjusting through the day rather than choosing once.

"They're like having two in one. We always receive compliments from friends and family."
— Vicki H.

"They make our home look contemporary, yet homely, they provide privacy but let enough light in as well. Our whole family loves them."
— Julia M.

Screen glare

Most living rooms now have a television, and often a laptop. Glare is the complaint people don't anticipate until they've moved in.

Semi-blockout fabric filters direct sun without darkening the room, which is usually the right answer for a lounge. You cut the glare on the screen and keep the room bright.

"These are just perfect for filtering light in a room with computer or television screens that you're not going to be sleeping in."
— Emma C., verified buyer

If your lounge takes hard west sun in the late afternoon, consider blockout for that window specifically. You can mix fabrics across a room — they don't all have to match.

Large windows and sliding doors

This is where living rooms differ from every other room in the house, and where people get caught out.

Our maximum width for a single blind is 2400mm. Most living room windows and ranch sliders are wider than that, so they split into two or more blinds.

Two things worth knowing:

• Splitting costs nothing extra. We price by total square metre, so a 5.3m run split across four blinds costs the same as one impossible 5.3m blind would.
• They don't need to be equal. Split them to line up with your window mullions or door frames. A split that follows the joinery looks deliberate; one that lands mid-glass looks like a mistake.

Decide your split before you measure, then measure each section separately.

Sliding doors

If the blind covers a door you actually use, mount it outside the frame and high enough that the bottom rail clears the door handle and track. Think about which side the chain sits on so you're not reaching across the doorway every time.

Warmth, honestly

Living rooms are usually the most heated room in the house, and often have the most glass. That's a lot of heat going out the window.

A zebra blind does more than a single-layer roller, because the continuous fabric loop gives you two layers with air trapped between them. But we won't overstate it: the bigger factor is air escaping around the edges of any blind, and for pure warmth a floor-length lined curtain on a tight track still does more.

In a lounge, the setup that actually works best is both — blind through the day for glare, view and privacy, curtains drawn over at night for warmth. Our honest comparison is here, including where curtains win.

Getting the look right

The living room is the room people judge, so a few practical points:

• Match your blinds across the room, even if window sizes differ. Mixed fabrics on one wall read as unplanned.
• An outside mount makes windows look bigger, because the blind extends past the frame. On a smaller lounge window that's worth doing deliberately.
• Casing colour matters. Match it to your joinery rather than your fabric.
• Chain side — keep it away from the walkway and the sofa.

Next steps

Order the fabric catalogue. The living room is the room where colour matters most, and screen colour is unreliable. Most people change their choice once samples arrive.

Read the measuring guide before ordering, particularly the section on splitting wide windows.

Large or unusual window? Email a photo to shop@zebrablinds.co.nz with rough dimensions and we'll suggest how to split it.