Roman Shades Window Coverings Explained

Roman Shades are a very traditional window covering and have been around a very long time. What we’d like to cover first is, “What is a Roman Shade?” Well, it is a fabric shade that actually folds as you lift it. You can make these types of shades from different types of material and different styles, but a true Roman Shade folds as it goes up.

There are several different options available in a Roman Shade. You can choose from a flat panel, a knife pleat, a waterfall or hobbled, and the teardrop style Roman Shade. Although there are several other available styles that are out there; these are just some of the more popular ones.

Another important thing about Roman Shades is the fabric. You can choose from a variety of fabrics. We have choices in grass cloth, simple polyester, cotton blend, and also a silk option Roman Shade. All the different fabric choices also alter the price significantly.

Another thing that alters the price in roman shades significantly is how they’re made.

With your simple Roman Shade you have just a simple pull cord behind a simple fabric and a simple pull system. An economical version of that is where you take small strips of self lined fabric and you use snap on battens to create the look. The more traditional and more expensive style is a handmade Roman Shade where you take the fabric and hand stich on liners and inner linings; you have a much more durable batten systems and a heavier duty lifting system.

When it comes to the different types of liners that are options on Roman Shades we have many options. No liners, which means that light comes through and you can see through the fabric. We have the self-liner, which gives you privacy and allows light to come through. We can have a blackout liner attached, and what that does is it allows no light no light to penetrate the fabric itself but there is the halo effect of light that comes through on either side. For those that want a little bit of both, we have the Infiniti option. With this you have the blackout option when the Roman Shade is down, but, lets say that you need a little bit of light, but you still need to maintain your privacy; you can raise the blackout shade and have a nice privacy liner behind it that lets light through. Then when you’re done not needing the privacy anymore, and you’d like to have your beautiful San Diego view back, you can raise the bottom shade up and have the full view of your window. Those are some of your typical styles and options of a true Roman Shade.

Now we would like to introduce a new option called the modern Roman Shade. With a modern Roman Shade you get a very similar look to that of a traditional Roman Shade, however, they are completely different in the fact that they don’t fold. All of the modern shades roll up into a canister. The advantage of this is that you don’t have the stacking that you would if you did a traditional Roman Shade. On a modern Roman Shade you end up with about 3 1/2 inches of stacking once the shade is inside of the canister, on a traditional Roman Shade, the longer the window, the longer the stacking. It can range anywhere from about 6 inches to 16 inches.

Another advantage of the modern Roman Shade is the thickness of the fabric. A traditional Roman Shade is fairly thick and has the liners to it. The modern Roman Shade has a self-liner to it that can be privacy or room darkening and it is very thin and very light weight.

One option you have with a modern roman shade is the top down, bottom up option where you can either lower the shade from the top of the window downwards, or you can raise it upwards like you would any other normal shade. You can do this on a traditional shade, but it is not as simple and as easy as with the modern option because of the stacking that you get with a traditional shade. When you raise the modern Roman Shade up, it still goes all the way up completely into the canister.

A new option available in a modern Roman Shade is called a Pirouette. The nice thing about the Pirouette is that it gives you that nice privacy look of the Roman Shade; however, you have the ability to control the veins. You can make the teardrops go higher and lower so you can physically see through the sheer portion of the shade. You can control it and stop it where you’d like for as much view as you want. You can also lower the shade all the way and raise it with a simple press of a button with the motorized option. You can get this manually operated as well, but the motorization works really well on the Pirouette. With that, those are the modern Roman Shades we offer.

The last thing about Roman Shades is their control options. As we just went over, we have motorization options available. We also have a cord free version of it that allows you to raise and lower the shades by simply pushing the shade up or pulling it down with your hand. If you’re looking for something simple, we have our manual system. With a manual system, as you raise the shade, the cord gets longer. This is the most typical control of shades. You also have the top down, bottom up feature where you have two cords that can control the shade for you to make it go either down or up. We also have a system that is called a continuous cord loop. With this system, no matter where the shade is on the length of the shade, the cord length always stays the same. It’s very nice for large windows. Also, because it uses a clutch system, it makes very heavy shades easier to lift. We’ve also got a retractable cord system. Typically when you raise a shade, the cord gets longer. With our Ultraglide system, the cord retracts itself back into the head rail, keeping a nice, clean, sleek look, and no matter how wide the shade is or how many shades you have, all the cords look the same. Also, we have the twin option of having two different pulls for the two shades; you have the standard pull for the shade and your retractable cord for the liner.

Those are some of the most common things we see with Roman Shades here at 3 Blind Mice in San Diego. Can’t decide? Ask our knowledgeable window covering consultants at 3 Blind Mice Window Coverings. They will help you to choose the best option for you. Please feel free to contact us or you can call us at 800-828-2003.

We are located here in San Diego so you can stop by our showroom to have a look at our wide selection of window coverings!