Cellular Shades & Blinds for Basement Windows

A basement window is small, it sits high on a cold below-grade wall, and it is often the only daylight the room gets. That combination is what makes cellular shades and blinds the natural fit down here. The honeycomb cells hold a layer of air against the glass, which a flat fabric cannot do, and cellular builds smaller than most window coverings, so the short hopper and slot windows that defeat stock sizes are covered. Every shade on this page is made to the size you measure and shipped direct to you.

Light filtering or blackout cellular in a basement

Light filtering cellular shades are the usual choice for a family room, playroom, gym or laundry area. They screen the view from the yard or the sidewalk at ground level while still passing soft light into a room that has little to spare. Blackout cellular shades belong in a finished basement bedroom, a guest suite or a media room, where the aim is a properly dark space at any hour.

Cordless is the lift most basement windows end up with, because it builds the smallest and leaves no cord hanging in a room that kids or pets use. Top down bottom up is worth a look on a window at lawn level: lower the top rail to see sky and let light in while the bottom stays closed against passersby. A bead chain lift suits the occasional large egress window or walkout, and a motor helps on a window set high above a bar or a stair landing that is awkward to reach.

Small sizes are the constraint down here

On most windows you check whether a shade is wide enough. In a basement you check whether it is small enough, and the answer depends on the lift. Cordless cellular builds down to 12 inches wide and 12 inches high. Cordless top down bottom up keeps the 12 inch minimum width and drops the minimum height to 8 inches, which is the smallest of anything in our cellular range and the reason it covers very short hopper windows. A bead chain lift needs at least 18 inches of width, and a motorized cellular shade needs at least 23 inches, so many narrow basement windows simply cannot take a motor.

At the other end, cordless shades reach 94 inches wide and 94 inches high, or 98 inches wide on top down bottom up, while bead chain reaches 197 inches wide for a long run of glass across a walkout. If you are mounting onto a poured or block wall and would rather not drill, a no-drill mount is available on our cellular line.

Measuring and fitting basement cellular shades

Measure each window on its own, even when a row of them looks the same, because basement openings set in concrete vary more than framed windows upstairs. For an inside mount, take 1/4 inch off the measured width so the shade clears the frame. Check the depth of the opening while you are there: many basement windows sit in a deep well of concrete, which makes an inside mount easy, while some have almost no frame at all.

Where the frame is shallow or uneven, use an outside mount and add about 3 7/8 inches to both width and height so the shade overlaps the opening on every side. That overlap also closes the light gap, which matters in a basement bedroom. Adding more overlap is fine if it lines up the shade with nearby trim or a beam.

A basement has little natural architecture, so let the shades do some of the work. Choose a warm white or soft neutral that matches the wall color to make small windows look larger, and keep one fabric across every window so the room reads as finished rather than patched together.