Blackout Shades & Blinds for Apartments

Apartments have their own kind of light problem. The street light sits level with your bedroom, the parking lot lamps stay on all night, and the building opposite is close enough that its windows light up yours. Add a lease that frowns on new holes and windows that are rarely a standard size, and an off-the-shelf blackout shade starts to look like a compromise. This page brings together our blackout shades and blinds that suit apartment living, each made to measure from your sizes and shipped direct to you.

Blackout options for an apartment

ZeroGlow is the first place to look, since it answers both the light and the lease. It is a 25 mm blackout cellular shade held in a slim, edge-to-edge frame, and the frame presses into the window opening with no drilling into walls or trim. The lift is cordless, and you choose whether the shade travels up and down the glass or side to side. The fabric comes in six colors, White, Black, Beige, Light Gray, Dark Gray and Straw, with a choice of three frame colors.

Blackout cellular shades are the next stop if you want a conventional headrail. They are offered with a no-drill mount as an add-on, which is worth ordering if your lease is strict about fixings, and they can be built top down bottom up so you can let in daylight from the top while the lower glass stays covered.

Blackout roller shades are the cleanest looking choice and roll up out of sight during the day. Blackout roman shades bring soft folds and a more finished look to a living room window that doubles as a sleeping space in a studio.

Fit and size limits

Blackout roller fabric is milled on narrower rolls than light filtering fabric, so it stops sooner. In our squared cassette a blackout roller reaches 94½" wide, compared with 98⅜" for light filtering. A cordless roller in that cassette needs at least 23⅝" of width. Some fabrics come on rolls narrower than the system maximum, and when that happens the roll width becomes the limit, so check the fabric you choose on a wide window.

Blackout cellular reaches 94" by 94" with a cordless lift, and up to 197" wide by 157" high with a bead chain. A motorized cellular stops at 79" high. ZeroGlow is built to your opening in inches or millimetres. If light around the edges is what keeps you awake, ZeroGlow is the one to choose, because the frame sits inside the opening and a rubber weather strip seals it against the sides.

Measuring and installing

Measure the opening width at the top, middle and bottom and use the smallest figure, then do the same for height on both sides. Write the numbers down in the units you prefer.

ZeroGlow goes in three steps. Lay the frame on a soft, flat surface and join the corners. Fit the rubber weather strip around the outside edges of the frame. Then position the frame in the window opening and press the front gently into place.

Roller and roman shades hang on two brackets, each fixed with two screws on opposite sides using the anchor that matches your wall. If screws are not an option under your lease, stay with ZeroGlow or a cellular shade on the no-drill mount.

A dark bedroom changes how an apartment feels, and it does not have to cost you your deposit. Start with the window that bothers you most, usually the one facing the street, and build from there. When you move, measure the new place and order to fit.