Stunning Window Styles

A stylish way to add more light and ventilation to your rooms is by installing contemporary roof lanterns by Rooflights and Skylights - the country's premier supplier of rooflights. Contemporary lantern styles can add an extra dimension to your home, whilst increasing natural light to dim rooms. All you need is the space to expand upwards! Ideal for extensions and annexes to your home.

Blinds for Your Home

Ordering blinds for your home is easy when you have the right contacts. Pret a Vivre are London's premier blinds and curtains suppliers, offering a wide range of curtains and blinds. From kitchen blinds to large scale living room curtains, they can supply and install some of the most beautiful looking window coverings for your home. Ask their design team for more inspiring ideas and they are sure to find the ideal finishes to suit your style and budget.

Home Style Curtains & Blinds Bring That New Home Feeling

by | February 3, 2024

I have an aversion to curtains being put up at a kitchen window. The thought of all that mess likely to be filtering up from the worktop towards fabric curtains fills me with the same sort of revulsion that carpets in kitchens and bathrooms do.  I do know families who have both of these issus and they can’t see anything wrong with their choices.  however, they are the least clean and hygienically sound groups of humans within my immediate social circle and appear to revel in their reputation for being so.  In fact their choice of curtains of curtain and winedow dressinmg throughut the rest of the house dos have a sort of shock tactic to them.  I have suggestd they take a turn around our local home furnishing outlet store – they exhibit very tasteful room arrangements to complement their curtains and other soft ffurnishings.  Each item is demonstrated in a particular room setting with make believe windows.  The amazing effect new curtains and soft furnishings can make is incredible.

Sparkling Porcelain Encourages Sparkling Window Blinds

by | December 17, 2023

Some years ago I had the two main bathrooms upgraded, with full replacement of the sanitary ware and everything.   It started off as a project to upgrade the ensuite shower head . . . . some weeks and many thousands of pounds later I was the immensely proud owner of the most state of the art washrooms on this housing development!  I had advice from a specialist bathroom installer.  Knowing I was already heading down the mobility tunnel, he suggested various ideas to reduce my struggles with all things mechanical.   As the new porcelain was sparkling white, we decided the window covering needed to be updated to reflect this.  I had plain but brilliantly white venetian blinds.  They are still gorgeously white and very easy to operate – I never have trouble getting them to rise or fall.  The string operates strongly with a sharp twitch to the right to hold the blind in a paticular position.   The only problem with the blinds was the poor bloke having to drive a drill through the fabulous stone tiles now installed on the walls, but eventually so pleasing that I had the kitchen blinds changed to the same white design.

Window Blinds Help Raise Light Levels In Shade

by | October 2, 2023

There has  been a plethora of adverts for window blinds that you can just order online and fit ‘easy as pie’ at home.  That, as you might imagine, is simply pie in the sky rather than easy as pie.  Measuring the window casement space is critical, and as is normal, some parts of this space will be uneven and so the blinds probably won’t fit at all well.  The point about having a blind measuring expert is that they know how to cover the window space really carefully.  The roller operation will work more evenly and the whole thing will work and last for many more years than a cheap ‘look alike’ knock off model.    I have venetion blinds up at my ensuite, bathroom and kitchen windows – all sparkling white to help lift the light levels in those rooms by reflecting the light off the equally sparkling white porcelain sanitary wear.  It’s amazing how effecive that trick is but it only works when the blinds hang properly and do not dangle longer one side or the other.

Sparkling Fancy Narrow Gauge Blinds – Perfect

by | August 3, 2023

I have a  very neat one inch wide venetian blinds at 3 major windows my ensuite, the family bathroom and my kitchen.  When we moved into our house way back in 2002, I wanted to have clean lines all round the windows and opted for simple drapes.  However, when I decided to have the bathrooms and ensuite updated – well gutted and refurbed, after 4 years,  took the dramatic decision to have pure white one inch blinds installed in each room.   These matched perfectly the fantastic shade of white porcelain that was the new sanitary ware.  Even today it’s wonderful to see the light sparkling off the good quality porcelian and a short whipe around with an e-cloth can cope wit the small amount of spillage in the kitchen particularly.  The bathrooms were carpeted but now enjoy universal praise from the many visitors they receive throughout the season!  The tiles are all mushroom seascape colour and with the still vibrant porcelain and shiny chrome, whatever, the weather and dullness outside the windows.

Lined Curtains & Matching Blinds Keep Chills Down

by | May 3, 2023

Well we have had the most incredible variation in wather this last couple of months.  Instad of the regular feezing cold giving way to mushy and messy rain showers by the end of March, the spring like warmth that usually follows in April is awaited still.  It’s been as cold but January and we had flurries of snow across the country recently.  This presents a bit of a problem for me – do I put the heating back on, thus breaking my own set house rules of all heating controls set to off once we put the clocks forward on the last Sunday of March!  However, I do have very good curtains and blinds at most major windows and patio doors.  The curtains are all fully lined with thermal linings which are cream and therefore keep the light atmosphere, the roller blins are plain cream, the same as the background to the floral design.  I can’t say I’m actually boilng hot, but much warmer than I would otherwise be.  Loined curtains and matching blinds are a  great investment .

Window Blinds Really Do Keep You Cool In The Heat

by | March 3, 2023

When you’re working at a keyboard all day, the last thing you want is heavy sunlight streaming in to affect the screen.  Also,it can get unbelievably hot if no shade is available.  Window blinds are a fantastic way of protecting one from the sunlight and its effects.  They are also extremely good at keeping a room as cool as possible.  I learnt this point from a chap in our office.  One long hot summer the sun was truly pouring in through the 24 windows along our office – it was suffocatingly hot.  One of our visitors just went round suggesting to each affected person that they shut their blinds down as much as possible – it would make them feel cooler and would stop the eye strain.  Why none of us had thought to do that prior – well no one knows!  I have put that into practice ever since.  Whenever I’m working from home, I ensure I can reach the window dressings and cover each square mm as soon as I need to

Changing Blinds Never A Quick Job

by | December 5, 2022

As I sit here with uusual sun streaming through all the windows I’m reminded of how I used to be able to pull a blind down to shade my eyes.  I took the blinds down at the start of the autumn season with a view to changing the design.  Naturally being a slow person, I didn’t get round to part two of that plan, actually getting the new items to replace the old.    So now that winter is here, I’m feeling the chill of not actually having any window dressings at all – bad move on my part.  I shall be sourcing replacements forthwith.   There’s nothing worse than sitting on the sofa and feeling that chill draft down the back of the neck.    Of course, I need to sort out a colour scheme – the old blinds were very much a dated colour and I’m thinking of going modern, though that concept usually escapes me.

Cushions & Curtains To Complete A Scheme

by | October 5, 2022

I’e always loved autumn and the mellow days as we slip away into hibernation for winter.  I do actually go out during the bad weather, if I’m looking after someone’s dog or house, then I make the most of that and get out for walking.  It’s the rest of the time left to my own devices I tend to get stuck in to computer work and forget about outside the door.   However, it is also my time for  updating the curtain and soft furnishing themes in the house.   My kitchen has had a very relevant set of garden and tree themed curtains.  A lovely green and cream theme with leaf and tree shapes in relief.  So original some twenty years ago but possibly now heading towards ‘passed their sell-by date’.  I need to get these in place first before choosing the rest of the decor around them.  If I have the extra fabric left from the shorter two pairs, I sense a cushion covering session approaching.  Ahh perfect!

Kitchen Reno Ends Up Full Replacement

by | August 25, 2022

Oh what fun we’ve had with a home project.  New kitchen.  It seemed so simple way back just after Christmas.  We decided to update a couple of aspects of the old one but we gradually discovered that it’s much more complicated to try and take out one or two carcasses to be replaced.  We ended up going for a complete new kitchen, which is fantastic and we love it.    However the next stage was more fun in some respects.  We have an L shaped room, with the kitchen contained within a rectangle then beyond a peninsular unit is our seating area with a leather sofa and ottoman seating opposite.  We have a large patio door with side windows, everything looks over the garden.  We wanted to reflect that again in new curtains  and blinds.  After that choice, we will be able to get the co-ordinating paint for the walls in both spaces.  Painfully expensive, but oh such glorious fun choosing those finishing touches.

Space Saving Luxury and Ships Ahoy

by | June 11, 2022

I have a couple of relatives who ha ve gone on mad about cruising and they absolutely love it.  A lot of folk are disparaging about that sort of holiday – its usually because they think they can’t afford one and of course, you can’t take children on long ocean voyages.  They don’t get that much time off school and probably wouldn’t want to spend it on board a ship where there’s very little wifi and no games or big water parks.  One benefit of being able to sail away is being able to see the glorious decor and enjoy the prestigous soft furnishings and the clever interior design of the state rooms and cabins.  They are a lesson in making the absolute most of every millimetre of space.  the bathrooms have to be as function and comfortable as possible but without any obvious waste of space.  The main bedroom, again needing to be useful and functional, must offer a greater degree of oppulence than the cheaper end of the cabins