Anything I can do to make these shades work?

First time ever posting anything on Reddit, so please let me know if I need to add/change anything or post this somewhere else. Background: We have double doors with massive windowpanes in our living room that open out onto our deck and look out onto the street. When we moved in, these had the same slat-style blinds as every other window in the house. However, we also have a very reactive dog, and once she figured out she could move the blinds to see the neighbors walking past, she very quickly destroyed them. Obviously we will continue to work on training her, but the layout of the house makes it hard to do that without sometimes fully blocking her view out these windows. Our goal: Gain the ability to block our dog's view of the road when necessary, without destroying our own ability to use the doors and ideally sometimes look out the windows. What we tried: We got outdoor shades from SmartWings, figuring if they were mounted outdoors she wouldn't be able to destroy them, but if they had a remote we could still open/close them from the inside. On the website their "1%" fabric looks like you can barely see the outline of shapes through it, and there were loads of reviews of people talking about how well it worked on getting rid of glare from outside, etc. Dogs don't have great vision, so what we saw in all the photos looked like it would absolutely do the trick. The problem: These shades don't do a thing. We can very clearly see the street outside for most of the day. Not only is our dog going bonkers, but now there is painful glare in our living room all afternoon. We've been in contact with customer service and the shades cannot be returned. My question: Is there anything I can do to reinforce these shades and make them actually work? They don't need to be 100% blackout, just enough to make me not need sunglasses indoors and to prevent my animal from seeing our neighbors. The three ideas I had were: Use outdoor-rated fabric paint on one or both sides of the shade Sew on a liner of a thicker fabric on one side of the shade Get a window film that could add another layer of light blocking to make the living room livable and the street obscure for my dog when the blinds are down, but transparent enough that we humans could still see through the windows when the blinds are up. Would any of these work? Is there a secret fourth option? Am I just SOL and need new shades (and if so, is there anything that would work for my situation without completely permanently blocking out and/or removing the windows)? My wannabe HOA president checking everything out through these expensive and totally useless shades. submitted by /u/Fit_Pie_9230 [link] [comments]

Apr 28, 2025 - 21:28

Anything I can do to make these shades work?

First time ever posting anything on Reddit, so please let me know if I need to add/change anything or post this somewhere else.

Background: We have double doors with massive windowpanes in our living room that open out onto our deck and look out onto the street. When we moved in, these had the same slat-style blinds as every other window in the house. However, we also have a very reactive dog, and once she figured out she could move the blinds to see the neighbors walking past, she very quickly destroyed them. Obviously we will continue to work on training her, but the layout of the house makes it hard to do that without sometimes fully blocking her view out these windows.

Our goal: Gain the ability to block our dog's view of the road when necessary, without destroying our own ability to use the doors and ideally sometimes look out the windows.

What we tried: We got outdoor shades from SmartWings, figuring if they were mounted outdoors she wouldn't be able to destroy them, but if they had a remote we could still open/close them from the inside. On the website their "1%" fabric looks like you can barely see the outline of shapes through it, and there were loads of reviews of people talking about how well it worked on getting rid of glare from outside, etc. Dogs don't have great vision, so what we saw in all the photos looked like it would absolutely do the trick.

The problem: These shades don't do a thing. We can very clearly see the street outside for most of the day. Not only is our dog going bonkers, but now there is painful glare in our living room all afternoon. We've been in contact with customer service and the shades cannot be returned.

My question: Is there anything I can do to reinforce these shades and make them actually work? They don't need to be 100% blackout, just enough to make me not need sunglasses indoors and to prevent my animal from seeing our neighbors. The three ideas I had were:

Use outdoor-rated fabric paint on one or both sides of the shade
Sew on a liner of a thicker fabric on one side of the shade
Get a window film that could add another layer of light blocking to make the living room livable and the street obscure for my dog when the blinds are down, but transparent enough that we humans could still see through the windows when the blinds are up.

Would any of these work? Is there a secret fourth option? Am I just SOL and need new shades (and if so, is there anything that would work for my situation without completely permanently blocking out and/or removing the windows)?

My wannabe HOA president checking everything out through these expensive and totally useless shades.

submitted by /u/Fit_Pie_9230
[link] [comments]