Shades

Roller Shades

Roller shades get a bad rap sometimes. In fact they can be fun, practical and sophisticated. These are not your mother’s roller shades. This faux-bois patterned shade we made with hand-blocked shade fabric from The Alpha Workshops, so in addition to being beautiful, we think it brings special karma to the room!

These fun split/double shades we also made with hand-blocked shade fabric from The Alpha Workshops.

Here are some of the fun and artful roller shade fabric choices from Alpha:

Here are some roller shades that provide a unique kind of privacy by rolling from the bottom upwards:

Ribbed Roman Shades

Ribbed Roman Shades create a great texture of horizontal folds when raised, and like all Roman SHades, they are flat when lowered and cover the entire window glass. Here are a few snapshots of ones we’ve made. These had a great box pleat detail on the valence:

This one had a gorgeous grosgrain ribbon band in a contrasting color. So French!

This one for a child’s room in a bright print has a self-valence. We also made the wood blinds shown here.

Flat Roman Shades

Flat Roman Shades are sleek, tailored and offered in a range of looks to suit your project and your taste. Here are some snapshots of installations of flat Roman Shades we’ve created.  This one, with both a lining for curb appeal and an interlining for light control, crisply finishes this window seat. (We also made the pillows.)

These grass shades were handcrafted at MT Custom to accommodate this arched window perfectly. They’re gorgeously sheer, offering privacy and light and also letting the window’s arch be the star of the architectural show.

Roman Shades in bold patterns like this wavy stripe  make windows a decorating focal point. To reign in a wild pattern such as this and keep it feeling tailored, we added an applied tape trim to three edges of the shade and repeated it on the bottom edge of the valence.

Here, a combination of airy white unlined shade fabric and snappy navy blue contrast banding creates a fresh, modern look. We repeated the treatment in the draperies at left to unify the whole room even with very different window treatments.

Bright citron yellow brings sunshine to this Roman Shaded window year-round. We left the fabric unlined for some light to peek through.

Here is another example of sheer-plus-opaque, a grass shade with an applied fabric border in a colorful stripe.

The gorgeous detailed trim on this window cries out for an inside-mount shade. Here, we created a lined shade in a bold pattern that proves diamonds can be a Roman Shade’s best friend. Picking up the room’s palette in a different pattern, this black and white shade offers style galore.

Leaving a fabric with such deep color and natural texture unlined creates a truly nuanced shade in this high-color room.

Sunny golden gingham, when tailored into an unlined flat Roman Shade with self valence keeps the country but loses the bumpkin!

An inside-mount flat Roman Shade enhances the custom feeling of built-in cabinetry, deep windowsills and other custom millwork because of its crisp, tailored fit and finish. Here, we added a blackout lining for total privacy and light control in the room.

More to come!

We’ll be adding more and more examples to our site, so keep checking back for fun ideas.