Farmhouse Shades & Blinds

Farmhouse rooms are built out of texture. Shiplap, painted cabinetry, a wide plank floor and a deep sill all pull one way, and a flat white vinyl blind pulls hard the other. What the look needs is a natural fibre with some grain, or a soft fabric fold, in a colour between cream and bark.

What to put on a farmhouse window

Woven wood shades are the centre of this collection. They are woven from bamboo, jute, flax, reed, grass, ramie and paper yarn across more than a hundred patterns, from tight heavy bamboo weaves to loose open flax. The material level sets the look and the price, from bamboo through jute up to ramie.

Roman shades in light filtering and blackout are the fabric answer. They hold soft horizontal folds rather than rolling flat, which is the right shape over a kitchen sink or a dining window where a roller reads too hard.

Light filtering roller shades earn a place in plainer rooms, and on windows where a woven shade would be too busy next to patterned tile. Light filtering cellular is the practical choice for a farmhouse bedroom.

One honest caveat: natural woven fabrics are not suited to high humidity rooms. In a bathroom or laundry, prolonged moisture warps the weave, and moisture damage is a listed exclusion on the woven wood warranty. Put a roller or cellular shade there instead.

Weave, liner, binding and valance

A bare woven shade is roughly 50 percent see through, which is fine as decoration and not enough for a bedroom. A liner closes the weave: a light filtering liner takes it to about 70 percent, a blackout liner takes it to full blackout. Each comes in nine colours, and both the shade and the valance get the liner, so the finished shade reads as one piece from inside. A liner can be attached permanently behind the fabric, or built as a separate movable layer with its own control, though that version needs a deeper headrail of about 3 1/8 inches and cannot be combined with top down bottom up.

Edge binding runs about 1/2 inch on the face, in ten linen and ramie cotton colours. It is not only decorative: the looser, lower weight weaves are marked as needing it, and leaving it off invites the cut edge to unravel.

Three fold styles are available. Waterfall runs the fabric off the front of a hidden headrail for a smooth continuous face, inside mount ready. Flat fold hangs the fabric behind the headrail so it falls in a crisp flat plane. Hobbled holds cascading folds at any height. Valance height follows the drop: 6 inches up to 59 inches high, 8 inches between 59 and 86 5/8, and 12 inches above that.

Width is the constraint to plan around. Woven wood maxes at 96 inches wide on every operating system, cordless, clutch, wand and motor alike. A wider opening takes two shades on a single headrail to 118 inches total, though a common valance still stops at 96. Cordless also gives up height, reaching 106 inches against 118 for clutch loop.

Measuring and installing it yourself

Measure the width at the top, centre and bottom and take the smallest, rounded down to the nearest 1/8 inch. Do the same for height. Give the exact opening: the factory applies its own 1/4 inch width deduction, so take nothing off by hand.

Then measure the depth of the frame. Woven wood needs at least 1 5/8 inches to mount inside, and 2 5/8 inches to sit flush. The bracket is 1 3/8 inches high by 1 3/4 wide and wants 1/2 inch of fabric clearance. Headrail depth varies with the lift: 1 5/8 inches cordless, 2 inches for clutch loop and motorisation, 3 1/8 for a twin. Roman shades use the cassette bracket instead, a 6 mm drill bit at 1.1 inch screw spacing, with drywall and masonry anchors supplied.

All of it is made to your measurements and shipped direct, with a limited lifetime warranty against defects in materials and workmanship. Order samples before you commit to a pattern: natural weaves shift a long way between one room's light and another's.