After almost 11 weeks of living in a “fishbowl,” we finally have shades in our house! We already have Belgian flax linen curtains in the loft, our master bedroom, guest bedroom, my study, and Darren’s study, but the rest of the house I wanted roller shades because they have a cleaner look and provide privacy at night yet allow plenty of light during the day.
We first talked to Hunter Douglas because we had their wood blinds at our Maui house and have always liked their products. Sadly, the window sills at our new house are not deep enough for their shade brackets. Their designer suggested that we go with their roman shades, although I like roman shades I just thought they would look too busy with our windows especially the ones already with the barn door shutters.
Last Fall right when we just started looking at houses, we stopped by The Shade Store on 4th Street in Berkeley. We briefly looked at their shade options, took their catalog and left. It wasn’t until after we moved into the house that we decided to check out their shades more closely, so we went into their showroom in Mill Valley a few months ago and spoke with their designer.
We saw the different shade options and picked up all the swatches that we wanted with us, then we scheduled for the measuring team to come to our house and measure the windows. While finalizing our decisions on the type of shades and the fabrics, we had more questions for the designer but unlike California Closets, The Shade Store designer didn’t personally come to our house to look at the windows, so it was very difficult for her to answer my specific questions. I had to email her photos back and forth and it took us 2 months to finalize everything.
The shades were shipped to us directly, and the measuring team came to install them. Upon installation, we noticed that the kitchen shade on the right had a black mark at the bottom, and then the bottom metal bars wrapped inside the fabric were all scratched. Also, the upholstered valances on the top were all different – some were flushed to the window frames and some had the returns (which I liked). The craziest thing is that nobody told us that there are different valances to choose from.
Right now we are waiting for them to redo the kitchen shade and all the valances. In the meantime, this is what we have so far. On the whole, the shades (especially their brackets) work with our windows, but it wasn’t a very smooth experience working with The Shade Store.
Here’s what our 10% white solar shades look like in our living room. We selected 10% because we wanted LOTS of sunlight coming through the windows. At night, we close the barn door shutters for privacy.
For most of the shades, we chose the “cordless” control because it has the cleanest look and I am not a big fan of the chain on the side.
We love the ceiling mount as opposed to the side mount of the brackets.
Right photo: The kitchen left and right shades do have the continuous loop chain because we don’t want to bend down to the floor to lift up the shades. The motorized control would have been nice, but it’s super pricey plus we have to change the batteries on top of the shades at least once a year, and we are afraid of losing the remote control! 🙁 We selected the 1% solar shades for the kitchen because we needed more privacy on these 2 sliding doors.
The upholstered valance with the return is my favorite. It gives the window (and sliding doors) a more complete look, plus it also covers the bracket and the roll.
The dining room also has 10% solar shades. We chose solar as opposed to other fabrics because we spend the most time in these areas and would like UV protection as well.
For the window outside our walk-in pantry, we picked light filtering roller shades.
The windows by the stairway also have light filtering roller shades. These 2 left windows have the continuous loop chain control as they are more difficult to open with the cordless control.
As you can see, the upholstered valances of these stairway windows are all different – the 2 left ones are flushed, the 2 right ones have the return. They will have to replace the left ones with the return.
It looks so much better with the return, doesn’t it?
We already upgraded our master tub window from a clear window to an obscure one, but Darren still wants additional privacy 🙂 so we added the light filtering shade.
This is the master toilet window…
The master toilet and the powder room…
