Installing Cordless Cellular Shades in Our Master Bedroom with Affordable Blinds

A big thank you to Affordable Blinds* for providing the lovely cordless top-down bottom-up shades for our master bedroom! I love having the opportunity to partner with companies to share products - as always, the opinions and thoughts are my own!

We live pretty much smack dab in the middle of Philadelphia. We’ve loved being in this location for the past 3+ years - there’s a ton to do, visit, and eat within walking distance, and we’re close to the largest park in the city (Fairmount Park). This magical combo feels like the best of both worlds when you’re a city dweller. While the proximity to so many great things is awesome, the one downside to the high density is a lack of privacy. You find that you get pretty cozy with your neighbors in a hurry whether you like it or not. Thankfully, we have pretty awesome neighbors though!

Our neighborhood and the ones that surround it are made up almost exclusively of row homes - townhouses that are all connected to each other - and because of that, all of your windows look directly into another person’s home. That means that curtains, blinds, and shades are a high priority when you move into a row house, but striking the right balance of providing privacy without completely blocking out precious natural light can be tricky. 

When we moved into our house a few years ago, I hung curtains in our master bedroom for both privacy and light blocking purposes while we sleep, but I’ve always wished I had blinds too. The reason? They give you the opportunity for privacy during the day without having to close the curtains and going into full blackout mode. I’ve always hated closing the curtains during the day when all we needed was privacy - it made it so dark in there! So when an opportunity presented itself to partner with Affordable Blinds to add some cordless top-down bottom-up cellular shades to our bedroom windows, I jumped at it.

Here’s a peek at our pre-blind situation with just curtains. It certainly worked, but always felt like a pain to have to close the curtains multiple times a day. Adding blinds felt like the right fit to layer in with our curtains to add that extra functionality we wanted without altering the style or look of our room.

Just like the name implies, top-down bottom-up shades allow you to raise and lower the shades from both the bottom and the top, offering you some serious flexibility on how you cover your windows. You can close them all the way, on the top half only, bottom half only, or anywhere in-between! I love that we can change it up based on our changing needs throughout the day.

Affordable Blinds offers a lot of different color, style, and light control options for their cordless shades. Since we already had heavy curtains that we always pull closed at night, I chose one of their most popular options: Exquisite Top Down Bottom Up Cordless Cellular Shades. I liked that they provided privacy, but still allowed a lot of light through - a great balance for our needs!

Affordable Blinds made measuring and ordering easy too. I just followed the guide on their website that walked me through the process. (Know that if you still have questions though, their customer service team is happy to help.) When I received them in the mail less than a week later, they fit just right!

When it came to installing them, I was a little bit nervous because I had never installed window shades before, but it ended up being really simple and straightforward. They came with clear and easy-to-follow instructions, and I only needed a few tools like a drill, tape measure, and pencil. I took my time and I was still done installing my three shades in just over an hour. I’m pretty handy and a happy do-it-yourselfer, but I really think this is something that most folks could handle as long as you know how to use a drill. Don’t be scared to give it a shot, and if you get stuck, you can always hire a pro to come and do it for you.

Here’s how our windows look now that we have them installed:

I’m thrilled with how they look! Because they’re cordless and the Cool White color is very close to our trim color (Behr Ultra Pure White in case you were curious), they almost disappear, which is exactly what I wanted. They add great functionality without taking anything away style-wise.

To pull them down from the top, all you have to do is gently tug the bottom tab in the center of the shade. If you want to operate them from the bottom up, just grab both tabs, pull the shade all the way down to the window ledge, then use the top tab to raise it up to the height you want. It’s really easy and intuitive.

Here’s a look at what they look like in a few different positions (it’s tough to snap photos of white shades directly against windows, so apologies that the blinds are a little hard to see!):

My personal favorite position for our bedroom windows is to raise them halfway up from the bottom. This provides the perfect level of privacy during the day from the houses directly across the street, but still lets a ton of natural light in from the top half of the windows. Since the shades are light filtering, rather than blackout, light still shines through them as well. That’s where I have them in the images below.

I’m thrilled that I finally took the plunge and installed some top-down bottom-up cellular shades, and I’m really happy with the quality and look of these in particular from Affordable Blinds! I’d happily recommend them if you’re on the hunt for some for your own home. I’ve added them to my list of window treatment retailers for my e-design clients as well. Another great thing is that they live up to their name - they’re affordable! So if you have a lot of windows in your home or are sticking to a budget for window treatments, definitely look into these. They often run sales as well, which is always a plus! 

So thank you, thank you, Affordable Blinds, for making my bedroom just a little more functional! These shades are a fabulous addition to our home!

*This post contains affiliate links, which means Mix & Match Design Company earns a small commission from your purchase at no cost to you.