Roller Shades, Made to Measure
One clean fabric, one clean line. Free in-home consultation across the Pittsburgh area.
- ★Free in-home consultation
- ★Measured & installed by one team
- ★Made to order, not off the shelf
- ★Evans City showroom · Mon–Sat
A roller shade is the simplest thing you can put on a window, which is exactly why it is hard to do badly and easy to do cheaply. The fabric wraps a tube, the tube sits in a bracket, and everything depends on the fabric you choose and whether the shade was measured for the opening it is actually going into.
We supply roller shades made to the millimetre for your openings, in fabrics chosen for what the room needs rather than what is in stock. If you want them to run on a schedule, see motorized shades.
Get a free in-home consultation
Tell us about your windows. We bring the samples to you, measure properly, and quote in writing — no obligation.
Choosing the fabric is the whole decision
Roller fabrics fall into four groups. Light filtering keeps the room bright and softens glare, but you will be visible as a silhouette after dark. Room darkening cuts most of the light and gives real privacy. Blackout blocks the fabric entirely, though light still escapes around the edges unless the opening is sealed, which is covered on blackout shades. Solar screens are an open weave rated by openness factor.
Openness factor is the percentage of the weave that is actually holes. A 1% screen cuts almost all glare and keeps a usable view; 5% and 10% keep more of the view and less of the glare. West-facing rooms in summer usually want 1% or 3%. A north-facing room rarely needs a screen at all.
Where the money actually shows
In the hardware and the finish, not the fabric. A cheap roller shade announces itself with a visible tube, a rattling chain and a hem bar that hangs crooked within a year. A good one has a weighted sealed hem, a clutch sized to the weight of the fabric, and either a fascia or a recessed pocket so you see the fabric and nothing else.
We specify cassette or fascia on most installations. It costs more and it is the difference between a window treatment and a piece of hardware stuck above a window.
Cordless as the default
Every roller shade we supply for a home with children is cordless or motorized. ANSI/WCMA A100.1-2022 has applied to custom made-to-order window coverings since June 2024, and we treat it as the floor rather than the target.
Cordless springs also look better. There is no chain down the side of the window and nothing to tie off.
Dual and zebra shades
A dual roller puts two fabrics on one bracket, usually a solar screen and a room darkening, so one window handles daytime glare and night-time privacy without compromise. A zebra or banded shade alternates sheer and opaque stripes on a single fabric, and you align them to let light through or close it off.
Both are genuinely useful in a room that works hard. Both also add a second set of hardware, so they want a deeper recess than a single roller.
Common questions
- Inside mount or outside mount?
- Inside mount looks cleaner and shows off the window casing, but it needs enough depth for the tube and it will always leave a small light gap at the sides. Outside mount covers the whole opening and blocks more light. We measure the recess and tell you which the window will actually take.
- How wide can a single roller shade go?
- It depends on fabric weight more than width. Past roughly 8 feet most fabrics start to deflect across the tube and you are better off with two shades on a shared fascia, which also keeps the roll diameter sensible.
- Will a light filtering shade give me privacy at night?
- No. With the lights on inside, a light filtering fabric reads as a silhouette from outside. If the room needs night-time privacy, you want room darkening or blackout, or a dual shade.
- Can roller shades be motorized later?
- Only if the shade was built for it. The tube, the bracket and the hem weight all differ. If motorization is a maybe, tell us at the consultation and we will build for it now rather than replace the shade later.
Talk to us about your windows
Free in-home consultation. We bring the samples to you, measure properly, and quote in writing.
