Every guide below is written by the Sill Shade workroom team from 60+ years of measuring and installing window treatments. This wing of the library covers the hard side of the window (blinds) and its soft cousins, the shades. Each guide stands alone; together they take you from “which one?” to a measured, mounted window.
Start Here: Choosing Your Type
Three guides that settle the big fork in the road: slats or fabric, and which construction of either.
- Blinds vs Shades: the five-minute decision guide. Precise light control against insulation, darkness, and softness, with a room-by-room shortcut.
- Types of Blinds, Compared by an Installer: wood, faux wood, aluminum, vertical and panel track. Construction, moisture sense, and where each belongs.
- 7 Types of Window Shades: roller, roman, cellular, woven wood, solar, zebra and pleated, sorted by the jobs they actually do.
Measuring & Mounting
The part that decides whether the order fits. Inside mount is measured exact, outside mount is measured generous. The details live here.
- How to Measure for Blinds: Inside vs Outside Mount: the three-measurement routine, the depth check, and the one deduction rule that prevents remakes.
Shade Types in Depth
Construction-level guides to the individual shades, written from the cutting table.
- Roman Shades: Styles, Linings, and Fit: flat, relaxed and hobbled folds, why lining is the engine, and what custom romans honestly cost.
- Cellular Shades: How Honeycombs Insulate: single vs double cell, real R-value talk, and where honeycombs win and lose.
- Roller Shades: Fabrics, Blackout, and Fit: the four fabric opacities, solar openness, the side light gap, and standard vs reverse roll.
- Woven Wood & Bamboo Shades: A Workroom Guide: dappled daylight, the night-privacy catch, which liners fix what, and why to order a room in one batch.
More guides are on the cutting table; the wood-vs-faux-wood question is next. If your window leads with fabric panels instead, the whole soft side lives in our curtain guides library.