Custom Blinds & Shades in Raleigh, NC

The Five Points historic neighborhoods — Hayes Barton, Roanoke Park, Vanguard Park, Bloomsbury — are largely 1920s and 1930s craftsman and Colonial Revival stock. Those houses were built with tall, narrow double-hung sash set in shallow jambs, and the openings are rarely square after ninety years of settling. Inside-mount blinds either need a reduced-depth headrail or they stand proud of the casing. We measure every opening at three points and size to the tightest one. Working off a single number is how you end up with a blind that binds at the top.

North Hills is a different problem. The mid-century ranches around it have long horizontal runs of glass, sometimes twelve or fourteen feet across a living room, and one blind that wide gets heavy and sags. We usually split those into two or three units under a shared valance so the sightline stays continuous but each panel still lifts easily. The newer midtown condos nearby run the opposite direction: floor-to-ceiling glass with almost no reveal, which pushes you toward ceiling-mounted roller shades or a recessed pocket where the framing allows it.

Out in Brier Creek and the developments along the 540 corridor, the stock is 2000s and newer. Two-story great rooms, transoms over the front entry, and a lot of west-facing rear elevations backing onto the golf course. Those west walls take real afternoon heat from roughly April through September. Solar shades in a 3 to 5 percent openness knock the glare down without closing off the view, and on the high transoms we run motorized so nobody is standing on a chair with a wand.