Cabin Shades & Blinds

Cabin windows rarely match each other. A log or timber cabin tends to mix one big view window facing the lake or the trees with a handful of small, odd-sized openings in the bunk room, the kitchen and the loft, and the frames are often thick, irregular wood rather than crisp drywall returns. Add cold nights, long summer evenings and a building that may sit empty between visits, and stock blinds from a big box store run out of answers fast. Cabin shades and blinds need to suit the wood around them, fit each opening as it actually measures, and give you a dark room for sleeping when you want one. Every shade here is made to the width and height you measure and shipped direct to you.

Shades and blinds that suit a cabin

Woven wood shades are the natural fit. They are woven from bamboo, jute, reed, grass, flax and ramie in tones from pale and whitewashed to deep brown, so they sit comfortably against log walls, pine paneling and stone. Hobbled folds suit a rustic, lodge style room; flat fold gives a cleaner line in a modern cabin. Unlined, a woven shade is roughly half see-through, so add a light filtering liner for daytime privacy or a blackout liner for a bunk room or bedroom.

Light filtering and blackout cellular shades are the practical choice for the rooms you sleep in and the windows that face the weather. The cell structure holds a pocket of air against the glass, and a cordless cellular shade lifts and lowers from the bottom rail with nothing hanging down. Solar shades suit the big view window, cutting glare off water or snow while keeping the view. Light filtering roman shades add soft folds in a guest room or reading corner.

Sizes, liners and lift systems for cabin windows

Woven wood shades are built up to 96 inches wide on every lift system. A cordless shade runs from 19 3/4 inches wide and up to 106 inches high, while clutch loop and motorized shades reach 118 inches high, so a tall A-frame window needs one of those. Clutch loop also goes down to 11 3/4 inches wide for the narrow windows cabins often have. For a wide view window, two or more shades can share one headrail up to 118 inches in total, though a single common valance stops at 96 inches. Some looser jute, flax and ramie weaves need a narrow edge binding, about 1/2 inch on the face, so the cut edge does not fray.

Cellular shades cover the larger glass. A cordless cellular shade runs from 12 to 94 inches wide and up to 94 inches high, and a bead chain cellular shade with 38 mm cells reaches 197 inches wide and 157 inches high in a single piece. Motorized cellular stops at 79 inches high, so use bead chain on very tall glass.

One caution: natural fibers do not like humidity. Keep woven wood out of the cabin bathroom and any room near a hot tub, and use a cellular or fabric shade there instead.

Measuring and installing them yourself

Measure every window on its own, even where two look identical, because cabin openings are seldom square. For an inside mount on woven wood, measure the width at the top, center and bottom and use the smallest, rounded down to the nearest 1/8 inch, then measure the height on each side and use the smaller figure. Check the frame depth: woven wood needs at least 1 5/8 inches to mount inside and 2 5/8 inches to sit flush. Send us the exact numbers and the factory takes 1/4 inch off the width itself. If a log frame is uneven or shallow, mount the shade outside the opening on the trim or wall; for an outside mount cellular shade, add about 3 7/8 inches to both width and height for better coverage.

If your style leans more toward a farmhouse than a lodge, see our farmhouse shades and blinds. Otherwise, order a woven wood sample, hold it against your wood walls in daylight and lamplight, and send us your measurements.