Ankeny is one of the fastest growing communities in Iowa, and a huge part of that growth is families. The Ankeny Community School District serves more than 9,200 students across eleven elementary schools alone, and most of the homeowners I meet with in Ankeny are raising kids, working from home at least part of the week, or both at once.
That combination shapes almost every window treatment conversation I have in Ankeny. Families here are not just picking a color and material, they are thinking about sleep schedules, safety, durability, and rooms that need to do double duty as playroom, office, and everything in between.
None of that means style takes a back seat. The families I work with in Ankeny want their homes to look finished and put together, they just also need it to survive daily life with kids in the house, and those two goals are not actually in conflict once you pick the right products.
Ankeny is a family town
With one of the largest and fastest growing school districts in the state, Ankeny attracts a lot of families specifically because of its schools, parks, and trail system. That shows up directly in what homeowners ask me for. Kids' bedrooms, playrooms, and shared living spaces come up in nearly every estimate I do here, alongside the usual living room and primary bedroom requests.
I approach an Ankeny estimate a little differently than one in a neighborhood with fewer young families, because the priorities are often different, sleep, safety, and durability tend to outrank pure style, though you rarely have to sacrifice one for the other.
Growing families also tend to move or renovate within the same few Ankeny neighborhoods as their kids get older and their space needs change, so I end up back in the same subdivisions repeatedly, sometimes even the same street, which gives me a pretty clear sense of what actually holds up over years of real family life here.
Blackout shades for kids who wake up early
A five o'clock sunrise in June does not care that your toddler went to bed at eight, and I hear about this specific problem constantly in Ankeny's newer subdivisions, where bedroom windows often face east or south with nothing but a builder grade blind standing between a sleeping kid and the morning sun.
Blackout cellular shades or lined roman shades solve this cleanly, and pairing them with a light filtering sheer underneath gives you a softer daytime look when full blackout is not needed, like weekend mornings the household would actually like to sleep in, without needing to swap hardware or add a second treatment layer later.
Cordless and child safe options
Cords are a real safety concern with young kids and pets in the house, and it is one of the first things I bring up unprompted in any Ankeny home with children. I cover this in more depth in my cordless blinds guide, but the short version for busy Ankeny families is that cordless and motorized options remove the hazard entirely without giving up light control or style.
For playrooms and kids' bedrooms specifically, I almost always steer toward cordless as the default, not an upgrade, since the cost difference is usually smaller than parents expect once they see the actual quote.
Pets add the same consideration cords do, and Ankeny has no shortage of dogs and cats sharing a home with young kids. Cordless removes the hazard for both at once, which is part of why I recommend it as the starting point rather than an optional upgrade.
Home offices need light control too
With so many Ankeny parents working from home at least part time, the home office has become just as important a room as the nursery in a lot of the estimates I do here. Screen glare during video calls is a real, everyday problem, and it needs a different solution than a bedroom's blackout requirement.
Light filtering or solar shades that cut glare without fully darkening the room tend to work best in a home office, since you want to see your screen clearly without losing all the natural light that makes working from home worthwhile in the first place, and getting that balance right is often the difference between a home office that actually gets used and one that quietly turns into extra storage.
Durable choices for high traffic rooms
Playrooms, mudrooms, and shared family spaces take a beating in a house full of kids, and I steer families toward faux wood over real wood and more durable fabric shades in these rooms specifically. Faux wood shrugs off sticky fingers and the occasional thrown toy far better than a finish meant for a formal living room.
Cellular and roller shades in a more durable fabric hold up well in high traffic rooms too, and the cordless, child safe options I mentioned earlier apply here just as much as they do in a bedroom.
Basements finished as a second family room or kids' hangout space come up a lot in Ankeny too, and those windows usually take even more wear than the main floor. The same durable, cordless approach applies there, just with an eye toward whatever natural light the space actually gets.
What Ankeny parents ask me most
Will this survive my kids, will this keep my toddler asleep past six, and is this actually safe with a crawling baby in the room are the three questions I hear more than any others across Ankeny. They are good questions, and every family's answer looks a little different depending on the ages of the kids and how the rooms actually get used day to day, so I would rather answer them honestly during a free in-home visit than guess over the phone.
If you are raising a family anywhere in Ankeny and want window treatments that actually hold up to real life, request a free estimate or call (515) 850-9700.
Have a question I did not cover? Call (515) 850-9700 or request your free in-home estimate and I will give you a straight answer for your exact windows.