The Low-Cost Hack To Stop Your Shades From Banging In The Wind

Window shades add style and privacy to your home, but when you open up the window behind them to let in a little bit of air, they will sometimes make noise. Whenever there's a soft breeze, you might hear a tapping noise as the shade comes into contact with the screen or the window frame. If the wind picks up even a little, however, this can easily become an incessant banging that disturbs the tranquility of your living space. Thankfully, there's an easier way to quiet the clamor than researching common window treatment types and purchasing brand new fixtures. Instead of spending a bunch of money to switch over to blinds or shutters, there's a low-cost hack to stop your shades banging in the wind: a pack of felt furniture pads.

Felt furniture pads are peel-and-stick products with an adhesive backing that typically go on the bottom of your chair and table legs to prevent them from scratching your floors. However, you can also apply them to the bottom, outside-facing corners of your window shades to prevent the fixtures from making noise whenever a breeze comes through. This smart hack comes from JuliaCaban on YouTube, and is a great way to start creating a more relaxing living space in your home without having to spend more than a few bucks. It works much better than weighing down your shades, which can pull at the top of the installation, and is also more effective than tape, which can damage the paint around your window sill.

You can pick up a set of felt furniture pads at most hardware stores and home goods retailers. Alternatively, you can order them online. An inexpensive set of Scotch Felt Furniture Pads will give you more than enough pieces to try out this trick on every window in your house. Like other peel-and-stick products, you should first clean and dry the surface where you're going to place your furniture pads. Stick the adhesive directly to your shade's metal or plastic bar, rather than to the surface of the fabric. If you notice that the furniture pads are interfering with the process of rolling up your shade all the way, you could stick them directly to your window frame instead. However, you might want to get pads that closely match the paint color of the frame if you're going to do this, so that they blend in as much as possible when the shade is up.

If individual furniture pads are too small for the size of your shades, you might want to try something like X-Protector Felt Strips with Adhesive Backing, which can be cut down to your preferred size. You might also want to check up on the length of your shades, because they'll usually create more noise when they don't perfectly match the dimensions of your window. If you're tired of dealing with window shades entirely, you can find affordable blinds on Amazon that are actually worth buying.