Window Shades
Eight kinds of shade, each solving a different problem. Here is what each one is for, so you can narrow it down before anyone comes to your house.
A shade is a single continuous piece of fabric or natural material that rolls, folds or stacks out of the way. That is what separates it from a blind, which has hard slats you tilt, and a shutter, which is a rigid panel fixed to the window frame.
Within shades there are eight types, and they are genuinely different products rather than eight names for the same thing. One insulates. One kills glare. One is for a patio door. One is chosen almost entirely because it looks beautiful. Pick by the problem you are trying to solve and the choice gets much easier.
Roller Shades
The clean, simple default. One flat panel of fabric, from sheer right through to blackout, in the widest range of colors.
Solar Shades
Cuts glare and heat while you keep the view out. The answer for a west-facing room or a screen you cannot see.
Cellular Shades
The insulator. Honeycomb pockets trap air at the glass, holding heat in through winter and out through summer.
Roman Shades
Soft folds of real fabric. The most decorative shade, for a room you want to feel finished rather than fitted.
Woven Wood Shades
Natural bamboo, reeds and grasses, handwoven. Warm texture and filtered light for a room that feels cold.
Banded Shades
Alternating sheer and solid stripes. Rotate them one way for the view, the other way for privacy.
Sheer Shades
Fabric vanes held inside sheer. Turns hard afternoon sun into even daylight without giving up the view.
Sliding Panel Shades
For patio doors and wide openings. Panels glide side to side instead of lifting up and down.
Not Sure? Pick by the Problem
Afternoon glare on a screen or a hot west-facing room. Solar shades first, because they cut glare and heat while you keep the view. Cellular shades if the heat matters more than the view.
A bedroom that has to be dark. Roller shades in a room-darkening or blackout fabric, or cellular shades with a blackout liner. Nothing else on this page truly blacks out, whatever it looks like in a photograph.
A cold room, or a heating bill you would like to be smaller. Cellular shades. The honeycomb pockets are the only structure here that is actually engineered to insulate.
Privacy at night without losing the daytime view. Banded shades or sheer shades. Both switch between seeing out and being covered, and both do it without you raising anything.
A patio door or a very wide opening. Sliding panel shades. Panels that glide sideways, so nothing has to lift a twelve foot span.
A room that feels cold, hard or unfinished. Woven wood shades for natural texture, or Roman shades for soft fabric folds. These two get chosen for how they look, and that is a perfectly good reason.
Why Shades Work Harder in Boise
Treasure Valley light is not gentle. The summer sun sits low and hard in the west through the whole late afternoon, which is exactly when people are home and using the room. Big windows, which nearly every newer house around Eagle and Meridian has, make that worse rather than better.
Then the temperature swings. A window that is baking a room in July is losing heat out of it in January, and single shades are often the cheapest thing you can put on that problem.
So a shade here is doing three jobs at once: cutting glare so the room is usable, slowing heat moving through the glass in both directions, and giving you privacy when you want it. Which of those three matters most in a given room is the whole basis of the recommendation.
Common Questions About Shades
What Is the Difference Between a Shade, a Blind and a Shutter?
A shade is one continuous piece of fabric or material that rolls, folds or stacks. A blind has hard slats you tilt, usually wood, faux wood or aluminum. A shutter is a rigid panel with louvers that mounts to the window frame like a piece of the house. Shades give you the widest choice of fabric and the softest look, which is why most rooms end up with them.
Which Shade Is Best for Blocking Heat in a Boise Summer?
Cellular shades, because the honeycomb pockets trap a layer of air against the glass. Solar shades are the other answer if you want to keep the view while cutting the heat and glare. On a bad west-facing window, people often use cellular in the bedrooms and solar where the view matters.
Which Shades Actually Make a Bedroom Dark?
Roller shades with a room-darkening or blackout fabric, or cellular shades with a blackout liner. Woven woods, sheer shades and banded shades all let some light through by design, and adding a liner improves them but does not make them blackout. We will tell you which is which before you order rather than after.
Can Shades Be Motorized?
Every shade type on this page can. Hunter Douglas PowerView runs on a rechargeable battery with a remote, an app and schedules, and there are simpler cordless and wand systems too. Motorization is worth the money on tall or hard-to-reach windows and on a whole wall you want moving together.
How Do I Know Which Shade Is Right for My Window?
That is what the free in-home consultation is for. Justin brings the real Hunter Douglas samples to your house and holds them against your own glass, in your own light, at the time of day the room actually has a problem. Choosing from a photograph is the one way to get this wrong.
See Real Shade Samples in Your Own Light
Narrowing it down on this page is the easy part. Choosing the fabric is not, because every one of these looks different in your room than it does on a screen. Justin brings the samples to your house, holds them against your own windows at the hour the room actually has a problem, and measures while he is there. Our showroom at 2615 W Main St in Boise is open too if you would rather come to us. Call ahead so we can be sure to be there.
Or call (208) 808-8676
Explore More
Blinds | Shutters | Motorized Window Coverings | In-Home Consultations | Contact