Hellobee Boards

I think it depends on your window needs, haha. We live on an urban area, so sometimes I want privacy but still want light through the windows, and other times (for sleep), I want total blackout.

So we have regular hunter Douglas silhouette shades that open from top or bottom, and I have long blackout curtains over each window (different curtains on every room that match our decor).

Our blackout curtains make the room 100% pitch black--but they are hung like the "do" picture so there is a lot of overhang on all sides of the window, so there are no light leaks.

blackout shades work better for sure. we have blackout shades in both the kids' rooms. really helpful in the summer when it's still light out at bedtime and they don't want to sleep!

I have blackout cordless roman shades, we could probably also use curtain panels on the side to address those light leaks, but we don't have daytime naps any longer.

@sorrycharlie: The most effective thing I've found is blackout shades with lined curtains. At our old house we got some nicer shades from either Lowes or HD that were the cut to fit, cordless blackout shades. They weren't cheap, but not super expensive either. Then we had lined curtains that covered all of the window. It was fantastic.

In our current house they had wood blinds up, which are pretty but not great at light blocking. We also ended up having to buy new curtains because we had an additional window. We got blackout liners for the curtains, but I think they're a pain. They're also kind of meh in terms of effectiveness.