The Roman blinds are not associated with people in Rome who were blind; rather, they signify the shades that we use for our windows in order to prevent dust and sunlight by dropping and raising a series of lightweight strips of cloth or card board materials, with the help of cords attached to them. They were originally designed and used by the people of the Roman Empire and hence, the name Roman Blinds. People in ancient Rome devised this clever plan because of their need to prevent dust and hot air from entering their houses. Their roads were built of cobblestones and hardened dirt and the winds swept up the dust from those roads and blew it on the houses nearby. Also when the Roman Coliseum was built, the stones being carved gave off unbearable amounts of dust which will make the people in houses to breathe uneasily.
To solve this problem, the people hanged wet clothes on the windows to prevent dust and dirt from entering the house through them. The wet screens prevented the dust by capturing them in the fabric and also the sun rays can be quenched of its heat by the cold fabric. This was considered to be the start to the history of Roman shades and Blinds. The Romans were praised for two things; one was their courage and the other was their creativity. The Roman Empire’s architecture still stands due to their creative structural designs for their buildings. Hence being overly creative, they devised the idea of using strips of lightweight fabric and pieces of light wood to make a covering for the windows. They used materials like straw, shavings of wood, thick fabric materials and some even used dried skins of animals to shield their houses from hot and cold weathers. They made additional decorations in them and soon, they became kind of a fashion statement in their houses. The drawstrings in them will be used to raise and lower the joined strips of any material, in front of the window.
As years flew by, the roman blinds underwent major changes in the design of the strips and the cord and present times find that most of the houses uses this method, in almost all parts of the world. They are made with thick and lightweight materials which facilitate the prevention of hot air entering the house in the summer season and surprisingly, some of the roman blinds will also prevent cold air during the winter, with the help of insulation layers in the strips used.
Every house in this world is now having roman blinds at least for the sake of decorative purposes and it is becoming increasingly difficult in finding houses without them. As there are abundant types of blind these days, we are very lucky than the people of olden times. We can choose the best suited blinds for our houses from a vast range of choices and the most preferred ones are the type which has fabric strips woven very closely to each other to make it particularly stiff. Also we now have option of making a particular type using the material we desire by ordering from manufacturers present locally or internationally. Nowadays they come in assorted fabrics, wood and cotton, which will make it look very creative.
