Custom Roman Shades with Blinds.com

When we purchased our house one of the first things to go was the yellowed and broken vertical blinds. After living in different apartments for over the course of a decade, vertical blinds on every window is what reminded me of apartment living the most and that wasn’t exactly the vibe I wanted in the house I had just spent my life’s savings to buy.

After a few late nights demoing floors and trim with our naked windows and ALL the lights on, I realized that it felt a lot like living inside a fishbowl with no window coverings to provide privacy after dark. So we ran out and bought some off the shelf bamboo shades and threw them up in an act of desperation and privacy. What was only meant to be a temporary solution, we ended up living with for the next two years and a half years.

With a lot of our larger projects completed I started focusing on all the finishing details: décor, furnishings, and you guessed it…textiles. I spent many many weeks pouring over online sites offering custom shades but always came back to blinds.com because their site was easy to navigate and the fabric selection was massive!

I reached out to the blinds.com team and asked if they would be interested in partnering with me on a project to outfit the two saddest windows in our home: the dining room window and our master bedroom window. They happily agreed and we got right to work!

I worked closely with Danielle at blinds.com to design and build the perfect shade for each space. I explained to her the importance of needing a cordless lift because we’re a home that has small kids running around and loose cords wasn’t something I wanted to worry about. No problem, she said. I told her that we definitely needed blackout in the master on the rare chance the baby lets us sleep in and we didn’t want the sun to wake us up instead. She understood that too. And after the first set of fabric samples arrived and the tones weren’t quite the color pallet I had in mind, she completely understood and sent some more. The whole thing couldn’t have been easier!

With 20+ fabric samples in hand, I narrowed it down to my top 5 faves (two whites, a gauzy taupe, a grey, and one with a little bit of everything). I taped the samples to the wall in each room to see how the colors would play with our existing decor and current wall color and even asked for your input on this Instagram post:

After making my fabric selection for both rooms, I measured my windows and sent off both my fabric choice and measurements to Danielle! A few short weeks later – the looooong boxes arrived! With a few quick screws into the window header (seriously the easiest install ever) they were up and we just kinda looked at ourselves and wondered why we didn’t do this sooner!

Ready for the after? Let’s start with the window you see first – the dining room:

In the dining room we went with an inside mounted shade in the beautiful gauzy taupe fabric called Cambria Spice. I wanted something light in color here because this tends to be the darkest part of our home and doesn’t always get the best natural light so it was important to me to pick something that didn’t feel heavy or block a ton of light.

We had the shade backed with a light filtering liner which is the perfect solution for spaces where you want the light to come filtering in but still need it to provide privacy. At night when the shade is drawn but all the lights are inside, you cannot see in! Trust me…I checked!

With the roman shade pushed up, the flat fold design stacks beautifully onto itself and feels soft and airy but still substantial.

In the master we went with an inside mounted roman shade in an almost tweed like fabric called Navarro Cornerstone. The fabric has beautiful flecks of blacks and greys woven throughout and when backed with the blackout liner from blinds.com – it blocks all the light! 

Another benefit to having black out lined shades is that the black out liner helps with heat transfer and blocks the heat so it stays out and doesn’t come in! For a house by the beach with no a/c, we don’t often need a/c here with the cool ocean breezes rolling in but every little bit helps!

And with the shades pulled all the way up! up! up! we get all the gorgeous natural light and a direct view overlooking the golf course.

Such a mass improvement from where we started, huh?! Here’s a few side by side comparisons just to show how far we’ve come:

If you’re in the market for new shades too, blinds.com has offered all my readers 20% off any blinds.com purchase between now and 12/31/18. Just use code HOMEBODY at check out!