The ones I've used work very well. I wish I'd gotten cordless, and I will, to replace my corded blinds, eventually.

I have had cordless pleated shades for years. They are wonderful.

Good to hear. I was concerned because I looked at some at Home Depot, and I couldn't figure out how to raise them after I lowered them. Also, some of the blinds will go on some large windows (maybe need two blinds on one header), so I was wondering if the larger, heavier blinds also work okay with the cordless system.

I have only one which after about eight years looks as good as new, although it's lowered and raised every day at least once to block the sun. There's a very inconspicuous small clear plastic handle in the middle of the lower edge by which you raise and lower the blind, so that you never actually touch the blind itself.

Even better with larger, heavier blinds because the cords get caught around the top slat on those and when you pull it, it breaks the slat. I hate the cords!

They work very well. they should be standard...no strangulation issue...

Thanks for the encouragement. Can anyone tell me if there is a trick to raising and lowering them? I'm still wondering why I absolutely could not raise the cordless blinds on display at Lowes.

You probably couldn't raise or lower them because they were a display and if somebody didn't know how to use them they may have yanked on them and broken them. Some of them have a little button at the bottom that you're supposed to push to release and then they glide up. The exact mechanism seems to be different from manufacturer to manufacturer. The people at Lowes should have been able to help you.

We outfitted the majority of our new home with top-down, bottom-up cordless pleated shades from Lowes. I've found them very easy to move up and down. No issues in two years.

We have cordless blinds for all the windows in our house. Best decision ever. No extra strings dangling for my kids to play with and overall looks cleaner too.

We only have them for about 6 months, so far so good. I can move the blinds up and down with one hand. The widest one we have is about 4 feet, no problem with that either.

Where did you get them and are they a lot more money than corded blinds?

Nn Nn, Thanks for your comments. I have a few questions: Are your blinds wood or faux wood? Where did you get them? Are they heavy?

My mom used to tell me that JC Penny was a good source for window coverings. So far, I've purchased 6 cordless blinds online from JC Penny- one of them is a top-down. They've been good quality, good looking, and inexpensive. They have a pretty large selection, and their customer service is good.

The best compliment came from my husband recently, who said, "I like these new blinds!" He rarely comments on anything :-)

Jbrig, Thanks for sharing your experience. I do have some wide windows, so maybe I would be happier if I had them install 2 blinds (with one header across the top) instead of trying to have just one blind span the entire width?

Sporty, Good to know about Penney's blinds. I did talk to someone there and was considering getting a bid from Penney's for blinds, as well as one or two other places in town. Did you get a particular brand of blinds? Were they top-of-the-line, do you know? Or mid-range?

I have a houseful of top down bottom up Levolor cellular shades and while the product idea is excellent, I would recommend against this brand. All of them have slowly shortened up about 2-3 inches over two or three years. It turns out that half of them were purchased on one type of warranty and the other half were purchased on a different type of warranty. The first warranty was definitely better than the second. Even so, when one of the cords in a shade on the first warranty broke I had to pack the shade up and send it away for repair. While the repair on the one where the cord broke was free, postage was $14. That repair would not have been free if the second warranty applied to that shade. And yes I had to have all of the original Levelor order numbers to get warranty service. That meant having the order number that Home Depot used to place their order with Levelor, not just my order number with Home Depot.

Levelor claims that there is nobody in the entire Los Angeles area that can repair these shades/ fix the length issue. That's 10 MILLION people who are unable to do this, do you smell bulls around here? Instead all of the shades must be shipped to them for repair. It would be cheaper for me to buy a plane ticket and have their tech come here for a day…Hey, I could even use my extra air miles up.

When I last spoke to them they told me there were no user serviceable parts so they don't sell parts. And there is no way for me to lengthen the shades again.

Takeaway message, read the warranties. Know in advance if you can repair them yourself or get local service.

Wow, practigal, that's disgusting. Way to make sure not to have repeat business! Sorry for your experience, but appreciate the warning.

So not sure if this helps, or is standard for all makes, but I had the shrinking shade length issue and somewhere read that if you extend them fully for a time they will lengthen out again. I have found this to work. Also I read somewhere to keep the pleats on pleated shades looking crisp occasionally fully open them for a time as well. I tend to now order my shades two inches longer than the actual window measurement so as not to have to deal with the shrinkage.

Thx, sumac. I just ordered two of those levelor shades (bottom up only). It's too late to cancel but I'll try leaving them down during the night.

One shade I ordered is transformations which is supposed to have more material, but I guess the shrinkage issue has more to do with the hidden cord system?

Anyway, two shades is not a huge investment. If they work well, I'll order more.

I have a hunter douglas TDBU shade too. I never move it. I'll have to see if anything shrunk after all these years. It covers the bottom 2/3 of the window all the time.

I wanted some economical woven wood shades that I had used before from Blinds.com. It turned out that they no longer came with cords, just cordless, which I didn't want. I decided to get them, however, because they had the look and color that I wanted. I have been so sorry ever since! The blinds are heavy, even on smaller windows, so you have to have some strength to raise them. An elderly or weak person would have some trouble. You also need to be able to stand right in front of the blinds to push them clear to the top, which is a problem if you have a table in front of the window. Small children and short people might not be able to get the blinds all the way up. And finally, some of them won't completely unfold, no matter how hard I pull, so they allow a strip of light in at the bottom. Also, I have two that will NOT, no matter what, go up evenly. One side droops and it drives me crazy.

Some blinds are easier to use when they have cords!! I did my whole house with these, so I'm stuck for some time.