When you're building or renovating a home, options abound. At time, the choices you need to make can be seemingly overwhelming. Whether you're thinking about new kitchen cabinets, designing a built-in wardrobe, or selecting window coverings, your choices can make a huge difference in terms of how your home looks, functions and feels – well into the future. As such, it's important to thoroughly research your options and ensure you're making an investment that you'll continue to be happy with over time.
Increasingly, we're finding that savvy customers are choosing to include Luxaflex® Duette® Shades in their homes. Luxaflex® Duette® Shades the Original cellular blind, and have a unique honeycomb ‘cell' structure that traps air and acts as an insulation barrier for windows. In fact, these smart air pockets can reduce the heat transfer through a window and reduce the average home's heating costs by up to 43%1.
However, while they're well-known for their amazing insulation properties, these highly innovative blinds have some other stand-out features too. These include:
According to recent tests, the Duette® Shades absorb sound energy within their insulated shell, which can dull exterior noise by an impressive 52%2, while still letting plenty of light enter the home.
For people living in busy urban areas, or apartments, this can be enormously beneficial. They're also an ideal solution for rooms of the home where it's important to keep external noise to a minimum, like in media rooms or bedrooms.
Another great feature of Duette® Shades is their flexibility. This means you can customise your shades to suit your home and your windows.
For a start, they're available in a wide variety of colours, textures and fabrics – and you can pair them perfectly with other window furnishings such as Luxaflex® Luminette® Privacy Sheers or Luxaflex Silhouette® Shadings, to complete your fit-out.
You can also install them in a number of different ways. They can be installed either as a top-down solution, as a bottom-up option.
For instance, when Neale Whitaker recently designed a luxury property on Sydney's northern beaches, for instance, he chose the Luxaflex® Duette® Architella® Shades with top down/bottom-up configuration, so as to control the flow of bright light into the for living/dining and kitchen areas.
With the Vertiglide® system, you also have the option of running your blinds vertically, like an accordion, to cover wide areas like sliding doors.
Plus, there's the option of Duo-Lite, where you can have blockout and translucent fabric combined in the same blind, with a middle bar that you raise and lower to control light and privacy.
Duette® Shades can also be accompanied by a range of different operating systems, including EasyRise, Ultraglide®, the cord-free LiteRise, a hard-wired motorised system, or our tech-savvy PowerView® system.
These smart blinds can even be used on skylights – where they can be fitted to suit the European style Tilt-Turn window design. Our proprietary TrackGlide® System provides exceptional insulation, privacy and light control without restricting the full functionality of a Tilt & Turn window. The unobtrusive side-tracks keep the shade in position regardless of whether the window is closed, swung open or tilted from the top.
Created to help you outsmart the sun and enjoy a better night's sleep, Duette® LightLock Shades combine the industry-leading Duette® Shades with the patented LightLock System to achieve pure darkness.
These shades feature a unique U-Shaped side channel that is designed to absorb, deflect and block incoming light from seeping through into the room. LightLock blends seamlessly into the window frame and prevents light leakage that is inherent with all reveal mounted blockout blinds. It's therefore a perfect solution for bedrooms, nurseries and media rooms, where maximum darkness is required.
Interested in finding more about Luxaflex custom window coverings?
1Savings are based on the installation of fully-recessed, reveal-mounted Duette Architella Shades with 20mm blockout fabric in an average home in Sydney, compared with the House Energy Rating standard of Holland Blinds from AccuRate, in that home. These calculations have been modelled by an independent third party. Savings will vary based on the window type and installation. ^ Based on information from NABERS (National Australian Built Environment Rating System). Visit www.nabers.com.au for more information.
2The scale for sound absorption is in a range from 0.00 to 1.00 where 1.00 means total, 100% total absorption of sound. The scale can be equated to percentages – for example a value of 0.35 would indicate approx. 35% sound absorption. Source: Hunter Douglas USA Reference Guide April 2010.
