Black curtains may be fashionable curtains purchased for the enhancement of your decor, or tightly woven curtains that help to keep light out of a room. They are used in homes for various reasons, including noise reduction, energy conservation and aiding sleep.
People often purchase black or blackout curtains to block out light, in an effort to aid sleep. Light can disrupt your body's ability to produce serotonin and melatonin, which are vitally important for your well-being. Top-quality black-out curtains can help to reduce the amount of light entering a room by ninety to one hundred percent.
If you work on the night shift, or split shifts that include night work, blackout curtains can be of great help so that you can get the sleep your body needs. During the summer months, the sky lightens at 5 AM and that can also play havoc with your last few hours of sleep. People who have difficulties in sleeping may be disrupted by any type of light, including headlights or streetlight beams, and blackout curtains can help you sleep more normally.
In addition to aiding sleep, you can also help heat and cool your home more efficiently if you use darker drapes. Thirty percent of heat can be lost through your windows, and blackout curtains are helpful in preventing much of this loss. They are typically thermal-lined, which also aids temperature maintenance. In some cases, black curtains can decrease or increase your room temperature by several degrees, so you can depend less on your cooling and heating systems.
If you have spent big money on a big-screen TV, there's nothing worse than trying to watch a great movie with a glare on the screen. Blackout curtains will allow you to get the clearest possible picture by eliminating most of the glare. They work especially well if you have a projector or a plasma screen, since those are more susceptible to light and glare interference. The thickness of blackout curtains also helps reduce the amount of noise coming into a room from outdoors. They can't block a lot of it, but every little bit helps if the sound disturbs you.
If you live in a heavily trafficked area, or an apartment complex, you might want more privacy than standard curtains can offer you. In addition, black draperies are helpful if you develop your own pictures, or if you grow plants that are overly sensitive to sunlight.
If you would benefit from the use of blackout curtains, but you're not sure about what they will look like, don't worry. Today's blackout curtains don't even have to be black – they are available now in many different prints and colors. They don't even need to look any different than regular curtains, to the casual eye.
Make sure you install blackout drapes so that there aren't any gaps where light can get through. They should extend past the rod, and over the sills at the bottom and the sides. This will allow the black curtains to sit flush against your window, where they can best prevent light and noise and heat or coolness from entering your home.