In the world of window treatments, blinds and shades serve an important function. While the terms are sometimes used interchangeably to refer to hard material or more utilitarian fabric window treatments, they technically mean different things.

One of my friends asked for a post with a tutorial on blinds and shades and I’m realizing as I write this that there is SO much more than I can possibly cover in one post. But here is an overview on some of the main differences and when and where they work best!

Definition of Blinds vs Shades

Blinds are made up of individual slats usually of a rigid material like wood, plastic, or metal. that tilt, raise and lower. 

Shades are made of a single piece of non rigid material and raise and lower via any of a number of mechanisms.

Questions to answer before choosing your window coverings

Window treatments are such an important feature in any room.  Before making any decisions about what to choose, you will need to know what it is you are asking them to do!  Here are some of the things to consider:

• Do they need to control light? To what degree? Are we talking “cut afternoon glare so I can see the screen” or “I am a bat”?

• Do they need to provide privacy?

• Will I operate them frequently?

• Do I want them to add decorative value?

• Do I need them to help change the perceived proportions of my windows and room - i.e. make the ceilings feel higher and the windows look more gracious?

Blinds Pros and Cons

Blinds offer the most flexibility, hands down, in terms of light control and privacy because of the tilt factor.  They can be lowered for privacy but tilted to let in light and air while still obscuring the view into (or out of) a window. 

Remember the metal Venetian blinds of our youth that came in ONE color - a nondescript taupe/beigethat was almost exactly the color of cat urk?  We had them in every window of the house growing up.  They were not the prettiest thing, but they were super functional and lasted forever.

The next generation of Venetian blinds saw “mini-blinds” and even “micro-blinds” with narrower slats and an endless variety of colors.  They were still all metal with some cheap versions in plastic that never held up for very long.

Blinds are most often made of horizontal slats.  Vertical blinds exist and are a holdover from the 80’s where they were the standard issue window treatment for the ubiquitous sliding glass doors in tract homes.  While technically functional, “verticals” as they were called are not particularly attractive. And they came with little clip on chains to keep the vanes aligned at the bottom…  chains that made a wonderful game for the cat or toddler…and endless hours crawling on the floor to reattach them for the homeowner. 

Blinds have come a long way since those earlier standard iterations!  Now they are often made of wood, or a polymer imitation of wood (a better choice for any humid environment).  And they come in a variety of wood stains and colors and slat widths. 

The slats are strung together on a “ladder” of cords that control the position of the blinds.  Decorative tapes are sometimes added as a vertical accent and cover for the cord ladder. 

Much of the time, I match the blinds to the window trim color as they are more of a wood “millwork” type detail in the same way that shutters are.  

Side Note: And while shutters with wide operable slats (called plantation shutters) are very pretty, they are a bit of a diva, because to fully open them, they swing into the room which means the area must be clear of any obstructions and not be in a walking path. Blinds, on the other hand, have the same function and look but stay in their lane and don’t impinge on the space in the room.

Blinds are an excellent starting point for any window treatment design because of the flexibility they offer.  We often recommend them as the first (or sometimes only) layer when designing how a window will be dressed.

Hybrid Blinds

Silhouettes (and their cousins, Vertiglides) are a product made by Hunter Douglas that bridge the gap between shades, blinds, and sheers.  They are comprised of opaque fabric vanes sandwiched between a front and back layer of sheer fabric.  This makes them an excellent option for windows that need the versatility of all three types of window treatments. 

Lowered with the vanes open they are essentially sheers. The vanes can be tilted like blinds for privacy and light control, and with the vanes fully closed they operate like shades. The downsides are: cost - they are not inexpensive, and cleanability - bugs and dust eventually find their way into the channels created by the slats-between-sheers construction and can be challenging to extract.

A word of caution: please do NOT mix horizontal and vertical type blinds on different windows in the same room.  The lines create a pattern and mixing the types creates confusing, clashing patterns.

Shade Pros and Cons

Shades are a much broader category.  Functionally, they are either open, closed, or partially closed.   They may be made of a light filtering or a light blocking material.  

Depending on the type of shade, they may be way less or way more expensive than blinds.  A simple vinyl roller shade from the hardware store is just a few dollars, a custom fabric shade can be pricey depending on the choices and construction.

Custom roller shades come in a variety different materials to provide different percentages of light filtering screening and can be useful to control solar glare and heat.  But the more effectively they control those things, the more they decrease visibility, so it is a tricky balance.  They are also not exactly decorative, so aside from function, they don’t really add much to a room.

Shades may be flat or pleated.  Pleated shades may be a paper-like fused material or a custom fabric.  They may be a single layer or honeycomb layered (or double or triple honeycomb layered). So. Many. Options. 

Honeycomb or pleated shades and roller shades share the asset of stacking to a fairly minimal profile when completely open.  Honeycomb shades offer the most insulation value of the three.  All can be semi sheer to fully light-blocking depending on the materials selected. 

Honeycomb shades, like the silhouette hybrids mentioned earlier, have the downside of trapping dust and bugs in between the front and back layers and are even more difficult to clean.

Woven grass  and woven wood shades are a very pretty, option that can add a dose of nature and texture to a room.  These are available in a number of different materials with varying levels of opacity.  All can, of course, be lined to provide more light blocking or privacy as needed.  

Fabric shades come in endless options and are a great solution for a decorative and functional window treatment when full length curtain panels are not possible or practical.  This is often the case in kitchens and bathrooms or over window seats or built-in cabinetry   

There are many kinds of fabric shades.  Austrian, balloon, Roman, London, Hobbled, Soft Roman…shades with and without horizontal batons to keep them tailored…  Flat Roman shades are the simplest, and are exactly as advertised: a flat piece of fabric. Austrian are the fussiest with multiple shirred scalloped gathers.  The names are somewhat up for grabs with the same styles often referred to in many different ways.  For this reason it is always wise to send sketches and very detailed instructions to the workroom whenever ordering custom shades.  

The styles we use most often are a relaxed or tailored Roman and the London. Austrian is most often too fussy, Hobbled are quite busy and use way more material, and gathered balloon shades just look a bit too much like deflated latex?! The style is, of course, dependent on the room as window treatments should always be an integral part of the whole design.

Fabric shades can be unlined or lined.  When we do custom ones we usually add a third  interlining fabric of flannel between the decorative fabric and the lining.  This adds a luxurious weight to the fabric and creates softer folds when the shade is raised.

Shades can have decorative details like pleats, covered buttons, decorative trim, shaped lower edges, or attached valances.  

Proper fabric shades are mounted on a rigid fabric covered board with either a roller mechanism or fixed eye hooks so that the cords stay in the right locations.  The board is what mounts to the wall, ceiling, or window frame usually with L-brackets. 

Depending on the application, the shade might be attached to drop from the front of the board or the back.  In the latter case, a valance or some kind of cornice will be needed to hide the mechanism. 

Almost all fabric shades draw via cords that run through rings on the back side of the shade.  These draw the shade up in an accordion pleat fashion when raised. These functional cords are sometimes attached to a chain mechanism with a continuous loop for more streamlined and operation and to eliminate dangling cords as a safety measure.

Operating Mechanisms for blinds and shades

There are almost as many lifting mechanisms as there are types of blinds and shades.  The most common are spring tension (like the hardware store shades), cords, a couple varieties of cordless - which still contain cords within the shade, just operate on a friction mechanism, retractable pull chain, continuous chain or cord loop, and motorized with a remote or switch. And, in the case of stagecoach shades, hand rolled and tied in place with attached fabric ribbons - we don’t recommend these for shades that will be operated often!

We’ve ALL argued with a roller shade that refused to retract at one point or another, so you know how unreliable that mechanism is. Most other types use some combination of cords, at least internally. Cords are fairly reliable, but all things wear with friction over time. The good news is, cords are relatively easy to repair. Also, bear in mind that the larger the blind, the more weight and therefore stress, is on any tension or friction mechanism. And manually operating a very large blind can require some effort!

Cordless is my preferred mechanism as it eliminates extra parts dangling distractedly, BUT in order to operate a cordless blind or shade (without it being motorized) you have to be able to reach it when it is all the way up. For this reason, we sometimes use a different lift system for windows over counters, especially high windows, or vertically challenged clients 😄.

There are also top down/bottom up shade mechanisms for pleated and woven wood shades which open from both the top and bottom and can be positioned at any point on the window.  These are especially useful for rooms like bedrooms or bathrooms where covering the lower part of the window for privacy, but leaving the upper part uncovered for light is desirable.

Blinds will also always have a separate wand or cord (or remote) to tilt the vanes.

Mounting and Measuring for blinds and shades

Blinds and shades can be mounted inside the window casing (called inside mount or IB for inside bracketed) or outside the casing called, you guessed it, “outside mount” or OB for outside bracketed.  

Whether you choose to mount inside or outside the casing depends on a few things.  The most pressing concern for inside mount is the depth of the casing - is there deep enough flat space to attach mounting brackets?  Other considerations for inside mount: Is the casing deep enough to completely recess the blinds/shade into? Will anything interfere with the operation of the blind/shade? - like a crank handle for a casement window, for example.

Inside mount is a clean, unobtrusive choice that leaves the window trim prominently visible which might be desirable if the trim is substantial and decorative. But, bear in mind, the fully raised shade or blind will still stack to cover some portion of the window.

When measuring for inside mount, measure the width in three places top, middle, and bottom, and use the narrowest measurement of the three. 

Outside mount should cover the window trim completely unless there is a compelling reason for it not to, and extend no more than about a 1/4”-1/2” beyond the casing at each side.  

We often mount decorative fabric shades quite a bit above the window to increase the perceived height of the window and draw the eye up making the room seems taller and more spacious.  This has the added benefit of allowing most of the window to be visible when the shade is raised, letting in as much light as possible while still leaving a respectable amount of the fabric showing.  Decorative shades raised too high tend to look like a bad haircut with too short bangs!

For sheer or semi sheer shades and all blinds, we use either inside mount or outside mount at the top of the casing, as there is no changing the perceived size of the window if you can see it through the shade, obviously!

If total cavelike darkness is your goal, outside mount and light blocking shades will do a better job of that. And choose something with a low profile so it sits close to the casing to minimize the light strike at the sides. Light is a sneaky critter and even the tiniest amount is obvious if everything else is totally dark.  You can add channel tracks to inside mount shades in some cases, which is fairly effective if not wholly attractive.  A better choice, IMO, is to add a board mounted valance and panel draperies that return to the wall to block any light leakage from the top or sides of the blind or shade. And bonus: this adds decorative and insulating value too!

We ask a lot of our window treatments - they are one of the most complex choices to make in a room and they require some sort of investment, so getting them right the first time is important!

Need help with your window treatment decisions? We offer in-home or virtual consultations to help you get it right!