Custom roller shades, cut to your window and not to the nearest stock size

Why custom matters more than it sounds

A stock roller shade comes in fixed widths. If your window is 34 and a quarter inches, you buy the 36-inch shade and cut it, or you buy the 34 and live with a gap. Both show. Light leaks down the side, the shade sits crooked in the opening, and the room never looks finished.

Every shade we build starts as a bare tube that gets cut to your measurement. The fabric is rolled square to the tube, the hem bar is weighted to match the fabric, and the whole thing is run up and down before it leaves the bench. That is the difference you notice from across the room without knowing why.

Choosing the fabric

Fabric is where a roller shade becomes the right shade or the wrong one. The decision is mostly about how much you want to see through it.

• Solar / screen fabric — an open weave that keeps your view and kills glare. Rated by openness: 1% is dark and private, 5% is the common middle, 10% keeps the most view.
• Light filtering — no view through it, but the room stays soft and bright. Good for living rooms facing a neighbour.
• Room darkening — blocks most light, with some bleed at the edges.
• Blackout — an opaque backing that stops light completely. See blackout shades.

We bring samples to the house and hold them on the actual window. Fabric under showroom lighting is a different fabric than it is on your west wall at four in the afternoon.

Cordless, chain or motor

• Chain — simple, durable, least expensive. The chain is visible on one side.
• Cordless — you lift the hem bar by hand and it stays. No cord hanging anywhere, which matters in a house with small children.
• Motorized — remote, app, voice or schedule. Worth it on tall windows, heavy shades and any room with more than four openings. See motorized shades.

Every roller shade we build is sized so a motor can go in later, even if you order it with a chain today.