As with most interior design decisions, the material you choose to make your roller blinds from depends on numerous practical and aesthetic factors. 

Whether you need a fabric to keep out moisture or sunlight, different fabrics will suit different needs. Which material will be best for the job also depends on which room they will be in.

For example, in kitchens and bathrooms where steam is a common occurrence, PVC or vinyl-based materials are going to be your best bet.  These materials also act as natural blackout blinds, completely blocking outside light in a chic way. 

Conversely, sheer roller blind material would be better suited to living rooms or home offices. Sheer materials can help get rid of glare from the sun without casting the entire room in darkness.

While you may think that the colour you choose for your roller blind fabric is a purely aesthetic decision, there are several practical implications of the colour you select which may affect your decision.

Blinds, whether roller blinds, vertical blinds, Venetian or Roman blinds, can become focal points in any room. Given that they are often lit by exterior light, the colours you select will permeate throughout the room, whether bright or matte, and so you should pick colours that will match well with the ones already present inside. 

Just like choosing colours for your roller blinds, there is just as much variety and choice when it comes to patterning. It can feel a bit daunting searching through the thousands of options, but you can quicken the search my first considering a few details:

Much like a piece of art, television or a fish tank can be a statement piece in a room, so too can your blinds serve as a focal point. Generally, a feature blind will have to be fairly distinctive to make an impact. You can create this through contrasting colours or patterns compared to the rest of the room. Additionally, choosing bold shades that stand out is the best way to create a feature roller blind. 

A statement or feature blinds are an incredibly personal feature and can be an excellent way to put your home stamp. This becomes even more useful if you are renting your home rather than owning it. 

Creating a statement with your blinds can add that little personal touch while also being inexpensive. This modification can also be replaced once you finish renting and means you won't have to shell out tonnes of cash to improve someone else's property.

One of the key functions you will want from your bedroom roller blinds is that they can keep the sunlight out early in the morning. 

Therefore, it is easy to see why blackout blinds are often the most popular choice for bedrooms. A close second is dim-out blinds, which allow a limited amount of light to filter through to wake you up gently. 

Another great benefit of having blackout blinds in your bedroom is that they are thermally insular. This means that they will help keep the heat in the room during the winter and help to keep the heat out during the summer. 

Both blackout and dim-out blinds come in a wide range of colours and design possibilities, giving you as much aesthetic freedom as you could wish.

The main challenge that your bathroom blinds will have to deal with is steam and perhaps a modest amount of water if your window stands over your bath.  Therefore, the best material you can choose for these roller blinds is vinyl or PVC based fabrics.

These are mould and water-resistant, do not suffer from water staining and are easy to wipe down. Another benefit is that these fabrics are naturally blackout, helping you to keep the heat inside and the cold out. 

Kitchens are the most challenging room to find the right roller blind material for. Roller blinds in your kitchen have to withstand similar challenges to those in your bathroom, with a few more perils thrown in. Along with steam, humidity and heat, your kitchen roller blinds will also have to deal with fats and oils in the air. 

These can clog up your blind's control mechanisms, attracting dirt you will eventually have to clean. Again, much like your bathroom blinds, the best materials to make your kitchen roller blinds from is either vinyl or PVC based fabrics. 

Again, they will resist mould, water and steam. The other brilliant benefit is that they are easy to clean, which will be more applicable in your kitchen than in any other room of your home.  Unless your bathroom or kitchen is well ventilated, you will want to avoid using polyester-based fabrics. These offer none of the pros compared to vinyl and PVC, so you should avoid polyester most of the time.