Cheap faux wood blinds aren’t such a rare bird, if you know where to ask for them. Probably you won’t be able to find them at Bali or Hunter Douglas, as they pride in offering high quality window treatments that last a lifetime rather than cheap blinds for people on a shoe string budget. Cheap can also translate as economy, or value for money, and not necessarily as low quality materials. However, cheap is a relative notion, so let’s see what cheap faux wood blinds we were able to find for you:

Blinds com Brand 2” Economy Faux Wood blinds: with slats available in 8 colors, a 3” Crown valance and a flat bottom rail, they are as cheap as you can get. The 16” width x 20” height size cost only $18, while the biggest available size, 72” x 84” costs $111.

Levolor 16” x 20” 2” Visions faux wood blinds: made of flame retardant PVC, these blinds are very easy to clean and they come in 10 colors choices such as birch, cherry, maple, pecan and several hues of white. The 16” x 20” size costs $38. It’s more than double comparing to the ones mentioned above, but the material is better and the colors are more realistic. The main drawback of these cheap faux wood blinds is the valance, which is obviously made of plastic and which has plastic clips.

Lotus and Windoware 2” faux wood blinds: if all you want are some cheap, horizontal, white blinds, you can buy those, as they are quite durable and come with two year warranty. They include valances and mounting hardware and they are made of PVC foam. The smallest size available is 23” x 60”, available at the price of $28.99.

There may be more choices available, depending on your particular location. If you purchase online, you may discover pleasant surprises such as discount coupons or the facility to buy now and start paying after 90 days.

It’s probably a hard time for wood window treatments, since all these cheap faux wood blinds became widely available.

Wood blinds are very beautiful and they offer windows a natural look, so they are quite popular among home owners. However, faux wood is starting to gain advantage over the real thing, because of several advantages, one of the most important being the price. Wooden blinds are expensive, if you want to have the top notch quality ones, like Hunter Douglas, Levolor, Kirsch, Graber or Bali are manufacturing.

Wood blinds have the advantage of being available in more colors, nuances and finishes than faux blinds. Besides, they are lighter, so hanging them doesn’t require special hardware to support a lot of weight. In the case of wooden blinds, the slat size can go from those wood mini blinds which are smaller than 1″, up to 2 1/2″ which allow better view-through and which are suitable for larger windows.

Both wood blinds and faux wood ones can be motorized, so here we could say they are equal. However, wooden ones being lighter, they put less stress on the motor, so it may last longer than in the faux wood blinds case. This is only an assumption, as I haven’t really found any studies to prove this.

Even if you can afford to buy wood blinds, the only situation in which faux wood ones are better is high humidity. Wood doesn’t go well in rooms like kitchens and bathrooms, where the moisture variations could cause the wooden slats to bend or even crack.

Bathroom and kitchen are the most delicate rooms when it comes to floor coverings and window blinds. That’s because materials used in these rooms need to resist very well to high humidity levels. If in the kitchen you can solve this issue by installing a hood over the cooking machine, the bathroom needs special attention. This is why bathroom blinds have to be made of materials that do not change their shape when getting in contact with steam vapors. This means that you shouldn’t install wooden blinds at your bathroom windows, because in time they would bend and crack, so you’ll probably need to replace them very often. You have no idea what frequent hot showers can do to those wood slats, in case they are not treated against moisture.

Another issue with bathroom decorations is the mildew. This is what makes heavy fabric window blinds not suitable for bathrooms, especially if there is a possibility that they get wet. Because of the hot air and high humidity, the fabric won;t be able to dry completely, therefore mildew will appear sooner or later. This can have negative implications upon your health, not to mention that it smells really bad.

Either roller blinds or Venetian blinds made up of light fabrics can be suitable for bathrooms. Another good option are the bamboo blinds. Wicker, rattan and bamboo are wood species that love water, therefore you’ll be safe with your choice of bathroom window treatments. In case you insist to have the wood-like effect, you can choose those faux wood blinds, which are safe for any type of environment, so they can make great bathroom blinds.