April 2020 - McNeill Palm

The Benefits of Blackout Window Shades

April 21, 2023April 27, 2020 by McNeill Palm Team

Blackout window shades in Santa Rosa Beach, FL can be a very beneficial change to your home. Once you have blackout window shades installed, you may wonder why you never thought of using them on your windows before.

Blackout window shades serve a variety of purposes – and provide a variety of benefits – in your home. The beauty of blackout window shades is that having them installed doesn’t mean you can’t have natural light from the sun pouring inside your home when you want it to, but you can effectively block all outside light when you need to.

One benefit of blackout window shades is that you and your family will sleep better – whether you or someone else works at night and sleeps during the day, you have little ones that take naps in the afternoon, or you all sleep at night.

While you know that a lot of natural light comes into your house during the day, you may not be aware of how much artificial light can seep into your home at night. The night lights may be streetlights, outside house lights, or headlights, but those lights can interrupt your sleep without you or your family knowing it.

For the best sleep possible, day or night, have blackout window shades installed in bedrooms or other places in the house where people frequently nap or sleep. With light blocked out, you can sleep without disruption.

There has been quite a lot of research into health issues that can arise from lack of sleep and from poor sleep. Among these are sleep deprivation – which can affect your brain the same way alcohol and drugs do and make your judgement impaired or make you fall asleep when you should be awake – and diminished brain health.

Toxins accumulate in our body naturally throughout the day. The liver effectively removes these (which is why the liver is such a critical organ in the body), but toxins that accumulate in the brain are only swept away for the liver to remove during restful sleep (deep sleep is best, but cleaning can also happen during R.E.M. sleep).

If your sleep is constantly disrupted by external light, then you are not getting enough deep sleep for these neurological toxins to be completely removed. Toxins build up over time in the brain and can lead to the development of dementia as you age.

Sleep deprivation is just as serious. In our 24/7 society, sleep deprivation from too little sleep or interrupted is an emerging collective health issue. The most sleep-deprived Americans are those who work at night. The effects of sleep deprivation are responsible for many late night and early morning car accidents, many of which result in severe injuries or fatalities.

Our bodies aren’t naturally wired to work at night and sleep during the day. Our circadian rhythms work on a 24-hour clock where we are most tired when it begins to get dark outside (melatonin, the hormone responsible for sleep, production begins in the early evening) and we are most alert at day’s first light.

When you work at night and sleep during the day, that rhythm continues but your life is counteracting it. Trying to sleep during the day can be difficult under the best conditions, but when light is streaming into your bedroom, it is virtually impossible.

Blackout window shades can give you and your family an excellent way to fight sleep deprivation and poor sleep. Not only may this save your life, your overall health will benefit as will your productivity.

If you’d like to learn more about blackout window shades in Santa Rosa Beach, 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.

Jazz Up Your Living Room

April 21, 2023April 20, 2020 by McNeill Palm Team

Window blinds in Santa Rosa Beach, FL can be part of jazzing up the style of your living room, along with other changes you can make. Look around your living room and see if it inspires you or if it makes you want to go into another room. Your living room may get used a lot or a little, but in either case, you can do some things to make it fresh and inviting.

If you’re like most homeowners, the furniture in your living room may be showing signs of wear and tear or they may just look outdated. Some furniture, such as antiques and family heirlooms, can add special touches to your living room, but sofas, loveseats, recliners and coffee and end tables can become unattractive over time.

Maybe your sofa, loveseat, and recliners were purchased years ago, and the leather or cloth is getting frayed or torn, has stains, or has faded from the sun’s ultraviolet rays. While purchasing brand new furniture is an option for jazzing up your living room, a much more affordable option is to have them reupholstered with new and updated materials (if the frames and springs are still in good shape).

Coffee and end tables get used a lot and scratches and rings from drinks are inevitable on wood finishes. Coffee and end tables that have glass coverings may have scratches or cracks in them. You can choose to replace these with new tables, or you may simply want to refinished wood or by new glass for your coffee and end tables.

Painting is another way to simply and inexpensively jazz up your living room. If your living room feels dark and dank on cloudy or rainy days, it may be the paint color that makes it feel gloomier. Choose bright colors to make your living room feel more spacious, airy, and light even when the sun isn’t shining outside.

Warm colors, such as light yellow, will be more inviting during the day in natural light and during the night with artificial light than cool colors, like blues and grays. Use bright white paint for the ceiling to give your living room a more open look.

Flooring wears out too. You may have rugs and flooring in your living room that have seen a lot of spills and dirt and mud tracked in from outside over the years, as well as a lot of ultraviolet rays from the sun, and they show it. If your flooring is wood, it can often be less expensive to repair and refinish it than to have new flooring installed. Rugs and carpet, though, can be replaced fairly inexpensively to add new vibrancy to your living room.

Now, look at your windows. Do you have dark curtains or drapes that you had installed when you bought your home? Do you have shades or blinds that aren’t operating properly because they’re broken or torn? Are all the colors faded?

Having new window blinds installed is another way you can jazz up your living room. Window blinds come in many types of materials and a wide array of colors, so you use them as an accent to the rest of your living room’s color scheme or you can use them to bring the whole style you’ve created together.

If you’d like to learn more about kitchen window blinds in Santa Rosa Beach, 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.

How to Care for Your Windows

April 21, 2023April 13, 2020 by McNeill Palm Team

When you choose the perfect window covering in Santa Rosa Beach, FL for all the windows in your home, you are on your way to increasing your home’s curb appeal. Curb appeal is important whether you plan to live in your home for many years or you anticipate selling your home in the future.

Windows create much of the curb appeal of your home, so you should include them as a regular part of keeping your home clean and updated. Here’s how.

Have you ever driven by a home that you thought would look great if someone would just clean the windows? Dirty windows give the impression to passersby that the homeowner isn’t concerned about the cleanliness of their home. Dirty windows also obscure the outside views that windows are supposed to take advantage of.

Cleaning your windows on a regular basis can do a lot for the curb appeal of your home so that your nice, gleaming windows become a focal point from outside and so that you and your family can enjoy both the full natural light of the sun and the stunning views available outside.

Plan to clean your windows once or twice a year. If you have windows that tilt so that you can clean the inside and outside of the window from inside your home, cleaning them will be much easier.

If some of your windows are hard to reach on the outside, you can hire a professional window cleaning service at least once a year. The cost will not be prohibitive, since you don’t need to deep clean windows very often.

Once you’ve cleaned your windows, you need to make sure that beautiful view outside is actually beautiful. With a little time and effort, your can transform your front and back yards so that they literally burst with color and they are well-manicure.

Planting perineal flowers and flowering bushes in both the front and back of your home is an easy way to have a lot of color during the spring and summer months without a lot of work every year. You can create decorative garden walls using stones or bricks to make the flowers or bushes stand out.

Keep bushes regularly trimmed so they don’t create a messy, tangled look. Keep the lawn mowed regularly during the spring and the summer and be sure to edge around sidewalks and fences to create a nice, clean look.

Now you’re ready to think about window coverings when it’s dark outside and you want privacy or you want to cool down your home during the hottest part of the day or keep your home warmer during cooler months.

Your window coverings may have seen their better days. Like anything else, window coverings can wear out over time. They may not operate properly. They may be torn or broken. Their colors may have faded.

Replacing your window coverings is another way to care for your windows. There are many styles, designs, and colors you can choose from that will make your windows stunning and that will update and freshen the interior décor of your home.

Taking care of your windows is easy and doesn’t require much more than these few simple steps that make them absolutely beautiful.

If you’d like learn more about window coverings in Santa Rosa Beach, 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.