Ian Short, managing director of Uni-Blinds integral blinds manufacturer Morley Glass, explains why the current ‘improve, don’t move’ homeowner focus has created market opportunities for slim integral blinds.

More homeowners are looking to improve rather than move at the moment. According to a survey commissioned by Compare the Market in April, over half of homeowners (52%) said they are choosing to stay put and make improvements to their property instead of moving, largely due to relatively high mortgage rates and the wider impact of increased living costs.

Whilst this cautious spending environment can spike interest in window and door replacements, this may not always be feasible for property owners whose renovations are being undertaken on relatively small budgets.

But that needn’t mean there are no opportunities for installers when you consider the potential for upgrading existing windows and doors with integral blind units.

One of this year’s home improvement trends is ‘remodelling’. People are increasingly looking to make better use of the space available inside homes, and that means bringing new purpose to under-used rooms. This is evident in another 2025 survey by Eurocell, in which 43% of homeowners said they have unusable space that they want to convert, and up to 70% said they were actively planning upgrades.

Where homeowners are looking to simply change the use of a room, replacing the existing IGU with an integral blind can be a smart move. This is partly due to it being a far less disruptive process that doesn’t impact on the window or door reveal, so only light redecoration is required, if at all, once the integral blind is fitted.

But integral blinds can also play a central role in enabling the room to be used for its new purpose, such as a home office, games room or additional bedroom, due to their ease of operation and all-round effectiveness at providing shading and privacy.

As many older generation PVC-U windows and doors will require 24mm IGUs, however, rather than the 28mm that is more common today, a slimmer type of integral blind is required for these types of retrofit projects. This takes the form of the ScreenLine SL16 Venetian integral blind system, developed by Pellini.

The key to the SL16’s compatibility and market opportunity is its reduced slat width. Available exclusively in the UK from Morley Glass as part of its Uni-Blinds range, this integral blind features slats that are just 10mm wide, rather than 12mm used in standard units. This 2mm difference means that integral blinds can be incorporated into a 16mm cavity to create an IGU with an overall thickness of 24mm (4-16-4mm).

Couple this practicality with SL16’s availability in nine colours, including contemporary options such as agate grey and black, plus two control systems – a cordless slider (SL16S) and a pull cord (SL16C) – and we believe it has great market potential for projects to rejuvenate specific rooms or even a whole property.

For homeowners whose windows and doors feature newer generation 28mm IGUs, the SL16 slim integral blind offers a different, but equally important, upgrade opportunity – security.

The specification of Secured by Design (SBD) and Part Q compliant windows often includes a 6.8mm laminated outer pane for additional resistance to break-ins. When this is combined with a 4mm inner pane to create a 28mm IGU, the 17.2mm cavity is insufficient for incorporating standard integral blinds.

However, this enhanced security 28mm IGU could feature the SL16. As a result, homeowners can upgrade their windows with a double glazed unit made to the latest security specification with the added wow-factor and convenience of an integral blind. That could be extremely appealing to home improvers who already have newer windows and doors, or for homeowners looking to build an extension.