Venetian blinds: aluminium for the harbour side, timber for the cottages

Aluminium: the moisture and salt-air champion

25mm slats in powder-coated aluminium handle everything a Gordon's Bay kitchen, bathroom or laundry can throw at them — steam, splash, and the salt-laden air that comes with living this close to the harbour. Fabric struggles here in a way aluminium doesn't. On a harbour-facing window it also does the same glare-management job as a roller, but with the added trick of tilting the slats to steer light direction rather than just raising or lowering the whole blind. Fine sand rides in with the salt along the Strand beachfront, and a slat you can wipe down beats a fabric that holds it.

Timber, for the harbourside cottages that ask for it

The older part of town — the streets closest to the harbour wall, with their Victorian-era and semi-detached cottages — often has sash-style windows that a warm timber venetian suits far better than aluminium. 50mm basswood slats read as a "real material" in a period room in a way that a modern aluminium slat doesn't, and they've earned their place on plenty of Gordon's Bay heritage facades. Keep them out of steamy bathrooms; a good lacquer finish handles normal humidity but not sustained steam.

Why tilt matters on this coast

A roller is open or shut by degree; a venetian steers light direction. Tilt up for glare-free daylight on a harbour-facing wall, tilt down for privacy from a street or a neighbour's upper window, close flat for full dark. On streets where houses climb the mountainside in close, stacked rows, that directional control solves a privacy problem a plain roller can't. Across a wall of fairway glazing on Erinvale Golf Estate, hand-tilting blind by blind turns into a daily chore, so the tilt is motorised and the whole wall turns at once.

What venetian blinds cost here

Slat material leads. Guides per square metre installed: aluminium in 25mm or 50mm comes in at R1,000 to R1,500 on a wand or cord and R2,500 to R3,600 once motorised. Timber, wider and hand-finished, comes in at R1,600 to R2,600 hand-operated and R3,000 to R4,500 with a motor.

Close to the sea that choice is practical, not decorative: aluminium copes with a steamy bathroom and salt-laden air where timber will not, and specifying it correctly on the day beats swapping a blind out later. Windows below roughly a square metre attract a minimum, because headrail, tilt gear and tapes hardly shrink with the glass. Each one is priced on its own line in writing.