February 2020 - McNeill Palm

Knowing When to Replace Window Shutters

April 21, 2023February 24, 2020 by McNeill Palm Team

Window shutters in Destin, FL are some of the most durable window covering you can have installed on your windows. They will retain their beauty and functionality for many years. However, there will come a time when they need to be replaced. But how will you know?

Often, the only reason that you may even notice your window shutters is they are no longer functioning properly or they are no longer adding a great aesthetic addition to the décor or theme of your room. But what are the specific things about window shutters that you need to look for to decide when to have them replaced?

One sign that your window shutters need to be replaced is that they are difficult to operate. When your window shutters are harder to open and close, or the slats won’t move up and down without a lot of manual intervention, then they are no longer operating the way they should. The longer you try to force window shutters to work correctly when they don’t naturally operate the way they should, the more damage you do and the less happy you will be with them.

Another sign that your window shutters should be replaced is when the slats are damaged or broken. With regular usage, over time, window shutter slats will get damaged or will break. Once slats begin to break, the effectiveness and the beauty of the window shutter is destroyed, and the window shutter needs to be replaced.

No matter what material your window shutters are manufactured with, they will eventually discolor over time. Wood window shutters are painted, and paint with eventually chip and peel over as the window shutters are opened and closed and the slats are raised and lowered.

Although you can have wood window shutters repainted, peeling and chipping paint may be a sign of damage to the wood itself. Wood is a living material and it interacts with the environment around it. This means that is can absorb moisture from the air, and this can lead to warping, rot, mold and mildew.

Once these problems have occurred with wood window shutters, they need to be replaced. If excessive or constant moisture in the atmosphere is the norm in your climate, you should consider replacing your wood window shutters with faux wood window shutters. You get the beauty of wood in a material that will not absorb moisture and, therefore, will not warp, rot, or develop mold or mildew.

Other types of materials used in window shutters can also discolor over time from exposure to sunlight. The ultraviolet (UV) rays of the sun can cause colors to fade or to get splotchy and this can destroy the natural beautiful that window shutters give to a room. Replacing them will restore the aesthetic value that led you to choose them for the windows in the room in the first place.

Another sign that your window shutters need to be replaced is when their hardware begins to fail. As you open and close your window shutters, there is wear and tear on the hinges that attach the window shutters to the window frame. Over time, hinges may start to slip off and the screws that hold them in will no longer stay tightly in place. Additionally, the mechanism that raises and lowers the slats, as well as the hardware that holds the slats, will fail over time and it will be very difficult, if not impossible, to open and close the slats of the window shutter, making it imperative that they be replaced.

If you’d like learn more about window shutters in Destin, FL, you can talk with our knowledgeable team at McNeill Palm. You can visit our showroom at 655 Grand Blvd Ste 106D, Miramar Beach, FL 32250, or you can contact us at (850) 613-6228.

Why You Should Choose Window Blinds

April 21, 2023February 17, 2020 by McNeill Palm Team

Window blinds in Destin, FL can be the solution to your window treatment decision-making process. With so many different types of window coverings available, choosing the one that will work best in every room of your home may make climbing Mount Everest in the middle of winter in a blinding snow storm seem like a piece of cake in comparison.

However, there is a window treatment choice that will work well for every window in every room in your home. That choice is window blinds, for many reasons you may not know about.

One reason why you should choose window blinds for your home is because of the wide variety of options available with them. There are many different styles of window blinds.

Window blinds can be manufactured in many types of materials, include wood, vinyl, faux wood, and composite materials. Although wood window blinds have that classic stylish look that adds class to any window and throughout your home, they are not a good choice in areas of the country where high humidity is part of the normal climate.

This is where faux wood window blinds save the day for you. Faux wood window blinds look like wood window blinds, but they will not be damaged by the moisture in high-humidity climates the way that natural wood window blinds can be. So you get the classic and stylish wood look on every window in your home without the worry that wood window blinds can create when they are installed in homes where humidity is high most of the year.

Window blinds are also available in a lot of different colors. This option lets you use window blinds as a complementary element in a room or to provide a contrasting element. For example, if you have light blue walls, carpet, and furniture, you could choose burgundy window blinds to offer a nice contrast, or if you want a complementary color, you could choose dark blue window blinds to create a uniform and complementary theme throughout the room.

You also have the option to get window blinds that are cordless. Corded window blinds, which you may be more familiar with, have a cord that raises and lowers the window blinds. While these may be fine in a home where just adults live and just adults visit, if you have small children and pets, they can make your home less safe for them.

Little children and pets like to play with the cords that hang down from corded window blinds. Unfortunately, they can get entangled in the hanging cords and can suffer injuries that may be minor or may be life-threatening.

Cordless window blinds have no cords for little ones and pets to get tangled up in. They are raised and lowered using the bottom rail of the window blinds, so they have nothing that poses danger to anyone in your home.

Another great option that window blinds have is motorization. This means that you can open and close the window blinds using a remote control. This makes it easier to control privacy and light anytime of the day or night from anywhere in the room.

A final option you can get with window blinds is integration with smart technology, using either a smart hub installed in your home or using a simple app on your smart phone. This gives you absolute control over your home’s window blinds, making it easy, if you’re away from home working or on vacation, to give the impression that someone is home throughout the day and at night.

If you’d like to learn more about window blinds in Destin, FL, you can speak with our experienced staff at McNeill Palm. You can come to our showroom at 655 Grand Blvd Ste 106D, Miramar Beach, FL 32250, or you can call us at (850) 613-6228.

Why You Need Window Coverings

April 21, 2023February 10, 2020 by McNeill Palm Team

When you’re thinking about a window covering in Destin, FL for each of the windows in your home, you may know that you need something on the windows, but you may not really think about why you need window coverings.

Window coverings serve both practical and decorative functions in your home. You need window coverings to cover all the windows in your home for several reasons that you may have never thought about.

One practical reason why you need window coverings in your home is that window coverings give you privacy. We all know that the doors inside our homes provide the option for privacy within our homes. But you also need privacy options from the outside of your home.

All window coverings give you some control over how much privacy they provide. You may have them open or raised during the daytime to allow natural light in and to bathe your home in the sunshine’s warmth.

However, if you’re not home during the day or you and your family are home at night, you might want to protect your family and the interior of your home from prying eyes outside on the sidewalks and streets around your home.

Window coverings can be lowered or closed when you want privacy from things and people outside your home, and they can help your family feel more comfortable and secure.

Speaking of security, window coverings can play a role in your home’s overall security. Most people have valuable things inside their homes that they use or they enhance their décor with. When windows are bare, these cherished items are on full display for anyone who looks through your windows to see. They can seem like an open invitation to thieves to break into your home and take them.

Having window coverings, however, lets you shield these items from would-be burglars and protects them and the rest of your family from potential intrusions and loss of irreplaceable things that matter to you and your family.

If you’ve recently had window replacements installed in your home, you will need new window coverings. Since the lifespan of windows is 15 to 20 years, it’s likely that your window coverings are the original ones that you had installed when you first moved into your home – whether it was a home you had built or it was a home that you bought from someone else.

Time passes quickly and you may not realize that your window coverings are as old as the number of years you’ve been in your home. Window coverings have improved dramatically in the last 15-20 years and you need to get the value of these advances to work in conjunction with your new replacement windows.

Window covering choices offer significant improvements in energy efficiency. New window replacements are more energy efficient because windows are manufactured to help reduce the loss – estimated at between 25 and 40 percent – of energy that escapes from homes on an annual basis.

This keeps your home more consistently comfortable without requiring the extra power that older windows require because of air leaks and gaps. Adding new window coverings will enhance this energy efficiency and can result in even more energy savings throughout the year.

New window coverings can also be motorized and integrated with smart technology to give you absolute control over when they are open and closed, whether you’re home or not.

If you’d like learn more about buying a new window covering in Destin, FL, you can talk with our knowledgeable team at McNeill Palm. You can visit our showroom at 655 Grand Blvd Ste 106D, Miramar Beach, FL 32250, or you can contact us at (850) 613-6228.