In-Home Consultation
Specification decided in the room, not from a catalogue.
Almost every specification mistake we are asked to correct was made without anyone seeing the room. Fabric chosen from a swatch under shop lighting, an openness factor picked without knowing which way the window faces, a blackout shade quoted without side channels — none of those are manufacturing faults. They are decisions made at a distance.
The consultation exists to prevent that. It happens in your house, at the openings in question, and it is where the actual specification gets decided.
What we look at
Orientation first. Which way each opening faces decides almost everything that follows — a west elevation taking hard afternoon sun wants a tight 1% or 3% screen, where a north-facing room can carry a far more open weave without any glare penalty.
Then the opening itself: depth of reveal, whether there is room for an inside mount, whether the trim is worth preserving, how square it actually is. Older houses are frequently out of plumb by enough to matter.
Then how the room is used. A room you sit in at six in the evening has a different problem from one used at nine in the morning, and a bedroom that needs to be genuinely dark needs hardware most people do not expect.
And finally power and control — whether a hardwired motor is realistic, whether battery is the sensible route, and whether anything needs to join a system you already run.
What we bring
Full-size fabric samples rather than postage stamps, because a weave reads completely differently at scale and against your own light.
Openness factor samples side by side, so you can look through a 1%, a 3% and a 5% at your actual view and decide rather than guess.
Smart film samples you can switch on and off in the room — the difference between PDLC and DLC is far easier to see than to describe.
Hardware samples, including side channels, so what a blackout system actually involves is visible before you commit to it.
What you leave with
A specification per opening, written down, with the reasoning attached — not just what we propose but why that rather than the alternative.
Pricing against that specification. Where there is a meaningfully cheaper option that would still solve the problem, we will say so; where a cheaper option will not solve it, we will say that too.
Lead times, which vary considerably between a stock roller fabric and a designer drapery fabric, and which are worth knowing before you fall in love with something.
Practicalities
Consultations are in-home across the Pittsburgh area — see where we work — and you are equally welcome to start at the Evans City showroom if you would rather see product first.
Allow around an hour for a few rooms, longer for a whole house. It helps if whoever makes the final decision is present, simply because most of the choices are visual and much easier to settle in the room than to relay afterwards.
Common questions
- Is the consultation free?
- Yes, for residential projects in our service area. There is no charge and no obligation to proceed.
- How long does it take?
- About an hour for a few rooms. A whole-house project with motorization and integration takes longer, since control and power need working through opening by opening.
- Do I need to decide on the day?
- No. You leave with a written specification and pricing. Most people take time with it, and fabric choices in particular are worth living with for a few days.
- Can you work from my plans instead?
- For new construction we can start from drawings, and often do. But final measurements are always taken on site once the openings physically exist — ordering from plans is how shades end up not fitting.
Talk to us about your windows
Free in-home consultation. We bring the samples to you, measure properly, and quote in writing.