Suggestions on New window shades

We recently replaced all our day/night shades with dual roller shades from MCD. Day/night shades are awful. Hated them from day one. The dual rollers are a sunscreen roller shade and a solid vinyl night shade combined. Built to order in any custom size so they always fit. They were approx. $150 per window so they are not cheap. You could do just the night roller shade am I'm sure they would be quite bit cheaper.

supercub wrote:
My day/night window shades need replacing. They're dirty and somewhat stained. I'm looking for suggestions on what to replace them with. One catch, I don't want to spend thousands of dollars do it. Do the big box stores offer anything that will work in a motor home. Needless to say, I don't want something that is going to rattle around when travelling down the road. I don't really care about day shades, I never use them. Thanks for the help.
Brian

Not sure big box stores will have anything. Maybe a specialized store in a big RV center, like Yuma or Mesa, AZ? Although you might not use the Day portion of the shades, the next owner might...so changing things too drastically might impact resale value.

When I bought my used Journey, there were 3 Day/Nite shades that were a problem. And after reading many forum posts I also thought it might be better to get an aftermarket shade. So I searched and searched and never found anything I considered economical. And I hated the idea of just throwing away the shade assemblies I had. So I delved into repair, or partial replacement.

What I eventually decided to do was to just learn to repair them, and in the process learned how to clean the pleated front window shades. I'm pretty sure that the same method of cleaning the pleated shades would work equally as well for the Day/Nite shades, with the added effort of removing and taking them apart.

After doing all the work on them that I have, I think generally, they are really well made. And work well. And after learning to restring and adjust them, they're really easy to use and operate too, IMO. And that's a dynamic thing...the shades operate differently depending on if you're in either a high moisture or dry area, so I have to adapt slightly when moving around the country. Not often, but occasionally.

Because of moving so often that I do, the strings will lose their tension and the shades will slip closed while on the road. I use alligator clips attached to the main tensioning strings (on the edges) that 'block' the shade from falling to hold them open until I'm at a place where I can adjust the tensioner. A little twisting to tighten the tensioner using an electric driver is all it takes to get the shade back to holding it's position. It's been months since I've had to do that though. Don't think I'll have to retention them more than once per year now, if that often.

The point is, after restringing, adjusting, and learning to keep the tensioner tightened on all the shades, I'm happy with them. One thing I learned about opening and closing them is to always grab in the middle or at equidistant points from the middle. Seems to work the best opening or closing. And with the supplies I bought to work on them, it's not cost me more than $100 in total. But probably costs 2 hours of work for each shade. I've restrung the three big ones in the LR, and one small one in the BR. Not that hard once you get the hang of it.

I think they could be cleaned by taking them apart, removing the shades from the frames, and dunking them in tall plastic kitchen garbage bin filled with hot water, bleach, Dawn, and whatever else you want. Might even work if you left them strung to their frames. That's how I did my front shades. Worked great.

Here's a link to both my blog articles about the shades and front pleated curtains: Repairing Day/Nite Shades & washing Pleated Curtains

Kinda long winded, but had nothing else going on. Hope it helps.

I've restrung a couple of them, that's not a big deal. My problem is, they're stained, and I don't think anything will get rid of that. That's the main reason I'm thinking replacement.

I like our horizontal metal blinds that came with the camper. They are difficult to clean but it can be done. The typical paper-like day/night blinds are impossible to clean.

I bought the insulating accordion shades at the big box store. I guess they call them cellular shades. They were like THESE You can get them that allows light in or no light in. I chose the latter. They will cut to size. I really like the looks of them.

HERE'S a picture of them:

Sorry I couldn't get the pic to post.

Within the first year of ownership I got rid of the day/nite shades. We have a chain of stores : "Blinds to Go" that replaced all 4 with plastic shades. Work beautiful...and cheap.

I just replaced eight shades in my motor home. Same reason as you, the day/night shades were dirty and difficult to clean, so out they went.
I purchase them from Blinds dot com. About $170 for all, made to fit. 1" metal shades and they have tie downs at the bottom to hold them tight against the wall when traveling. They offer several colors and arrived in about seven days. There are several online blind sellers and my wife loves these because they are clean!

We replaced with the cellular shades from Lowes. Several colors available and cut to fit while you wait.

We have used Home Depot, Lowe's and Menard's (if you are in that area of the Country) for custom cut cellular blinds as has been mentioned above. I particularly like the bed room shades which are complete black outs. No light comes through the tiny holes that exist in the day night shades and they are cordless.