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With Halloween just around the corner, the holidays are in full-swing. It’s very fun and festive to decorate your windows and the rest of your home for Halloween, for Thanksgiving, for Christmas, and more. However, you don’t want to damage your windows in the process. Spooky as storebought spiderwebs and decals may be, you don’t want your attempts at decorating to turn into lasting frights with damage to your window frames.
Here is what you need to know about how to decorate your windows for the holidays without damaging them so that you can bring the cheer without impacting the functionality of your home.
What To Avoid When Decorating Your Windows
Before we get into the ways you can safely decorate your windows, we should tell you what you should avoid in order to prevent lasting damage. These are good rules of thumb to utilize not only during the holidays, but all year round, if you’re someone who likes some extra life and personality around your window frames.
#1. Steer Clear Of Tape
Tape may seen like a quick, easy, and cheap solution to hanging up your window decorations. However, you don’t want to use this around your windows. Duct tape may seem like the solution to many a household problem, but it could cause some serious problems for your windows. Tapes use adhesives that leave behind extremely difficult to remove residue – especially if you stick them to your glass.
Said adhesives impact the glass’s clarity. Trying to remove them can result in you inadvertently scratching your glass and damaging it. You don’t want to use tape when hanging up decorations on or around your windows.
#2. Don’t Use Nails
Not unless you want your decorations to be a permanent fixture, anyway. It’s best to steer clear of nailing your decorations around your windows too, as this creates holes around your window frame. This impacts your windows’ performance, and can lead to further damage over time. Anything that puts a hole in your window frame is something that can lead to expensive damage and repairs. It’s best to avoid such methods.
How To Decorate Your Windows Without Damaging Them
Stay away from the above methods of putting up your decorations! In all seriousness, though, there are some really useful ways you can hang up decorations on and around your windows that won’t lead to damage. Some of them are as follows below.
#1. Utilize Suction Cups
These are a fantastic alternative to nails or tape, and typically won’t damage your windows if used correctly. For optimal results, you’ll want to clean the windows prior to sticking the suction cups to them, as this allows for better adhesion. Suction cups are also reusable, so when the holidays are over and it’s time to put your decorations back into storage, you can simply clean them off and put them in storage too.
#2. Try Stick-On Adhesives
Wait, but we just told you to stay away from tape, which is an adhesive, so why would we tell you that adhesive stick-on decorations would be okay? This is because the type of window decorations that stick directly onto your glass are typically designed to be able to be peeled off, without needing to worry about them leaving residue behind.
In fact, that’s something people sometimes complain about with them – the fact that they can peel off so easily if the surface is not properly prepped or if the decoration itself is cheaply made.
Stick-on decorations are great too, because they’re so easy to switch out. When Halloween is over, you can peel away your black cat silhouette or skeleton or what have you in favor of snowflakes and candy canes and the like. These are a great, easy way to decorate your windows without damaging them.
#3. Put Together A Windowsill Display
You don’t have to put stuff on the glass itself to get into the spirit of the holidays. You can also put together a windowsill display. These are super festive and won’t damage your windows. You do want to ensure that you dust your decorations and keep them clean to prevent the damage that dirt buildup can cause. However, these look great and are fun to put together, making them a great way to decorate your home.
#4. Try A Windowbox
For an outdoors alternative to a windowsill display, you can use window boxes. Many people grow flowers and other such plants in their window boxes. You can also use them as a means to bring the festivities to your home, such as with cut foliage.
There are many ways to decorate your windows without damaging them. The key is to stay away from nails and tape and to utilize common sense. If it seems like it could damage your windows, it’s probably better to stay away from it. However, it can be difficult to know what will and will not damage your windows sometimes. If you’re ever in such a pickle, a professional window technician can answer your questions.
Moyes Glass provides high quality window services throughout Northern Utah. If you need new windows, window replacement, broken glass repair, or if you have any window-related questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us!
