Real estate professionals encourage homeowners to depersonalize the house, so potential buyers can envision themselves in the space. While you’re clearing clutter, cleaning and freshening paint consider your window treatments.

Changing Window Treatments Give Your House an Edge on the Market

 “Freshening the window treatments can go a long way in making your house stand out from the rest of the houses in the inventory,” said Tracy Christman, Director of Budget Blinds’ Vendor Alliance. More and more real estate professionals hire professional staging companies to spruce up a home to increase its appeal to potential buyers.

Some real estate professionals will include the cost of staging the home in their services; however, others may look to the buyer to make upgrades. Ask your real estate professional during your initial meeting about staging arrangements. “A really nice faux wood blind shows really well and works with virtually everyone’s décor,” she continued.

Here are some other tips to help your home standout on the market:

• If your draperies are dingy or your blinds are banged up, replace them with faux wood blinds. They don’t have to be expensive to impress potential buyers.
• While the orange and pink flowered roller shade was perfect for your daughter’s room, it may not be the look a prospective buyer’s teenage son has in mind. Depersonalizing rooms puts the home’s best foot forward. Choose white, off-white or a neutral wood tone.
• If you’re window treatments are stuck in the 90s, it’s time to invest in new ones. Plus, if you have the perfect family starter home, window treatments purchased after 2001 have additional safety features like breakaway tassels and cord stops that enhance safety for children and pets.
• If you have a great view, call attention to it by bundling window treatments. Bundling is the practice of combining two classic window treatments on one window. For example, layer a sheer drapery panel over a roller shade or window shading to soften the angles and add drama. Draperies can be used to lengthen short windows or camouflage harsh angles.
• Improve photo shoots by using window treatments to control natural light in the room.
• Add blackout treatment to media room for wow factor.

It doesn’t take a lot to make your home standout. One or two simple upgrades can give your home the edge over the competition in the market.

When did getting a good night’s sleep become a luxury instead of a necessity? Sixty-five percent of respondents to a 2008 Sleep Foundation Study reported experiencing sleep problems at least a few nights a week in a month’s time; forty-four percent reported that they had problems sleeping every night.

What’s a sleep-deprived person to do to get more sleep? One suggestion is to create an environment that’s conducive to sleep – dark, cool, quiet and comfortable. The window treatments you choose for your bedroom can help create the perfect sleep environment for you.

“There are wonderful window treatments that block light and prevent heat gain, making them excellent choices for the bedroom, said Tracy Christman, Director of Vendor Alliance for Budget Blinds. If drawing the blinds closed doesn’t block light from that pesky streetlamp from disturbing your sleep, there’s still hope.

“The key to complete light blocking is the features you choose,” continued Christman.

Light blocking features can be added to new window coverings purchases to enhance room darkening. Add decorative tapes to horizontal blinds to block light that enters through rout holes, or choose routless louvers for your blinds. Cornice boxes and valences block light that can enter through the small gap at the headrail of the window treatment.

Roman shades and woven wood blinds benefit from the addition of room darkening liners, which present a uniform look to the street. Room darkening cellular shades block light and add insulation between cooled indoor air and the glass.

Sleep experts encourage troubled sleepers to wake at the same time every day. An additional feature that can help you wake at the same time every day is programmable motorization.  Just set the programmable timer to open your window coverings at a specific time in the morning and the light that was blocked all night will help wake you in the morning.