Home Office Shades & Blinds

A home office window has a narrower brief than a living room window. You are not trying to darken the room, you are trying to stop a screen washing out between about ten and four, and you would rather not work in a cave to do it. Whatever goes up has to cut the brightness at the glass without killing the daylight you sit in.

Which shades and blinds handle screen glare

Solar shades are the right starting point, because they are the only fabric family we sell by openness percentage, and that number is exactly the trade you are making. Our sunscreen fabrics run at 1%, 3%, 5% and 10% openness, blocking roughly 80%, 70%, 60% and 50% of light. A 1% or 3% screen on a west facing office takes out the worst of the afternoon glare and still leaves you looking through it. A 5% or 10% screen suits a north or east aspect.

Light filtering roller shades cover the same daytime brief in a much wider fabric range, which is the one to pick when the office is also a spare room and the look of the fabric matters. Light filtering cellular is worth considering if the office is over a garage and runs cold, since the cell structure holds a layer of air at the glass that a flat fabric cannot.

Zebra shades suit an office with one dominant window, because the alternating sheer and solid bands slide past each other and you reset the balance through the day. Blackout roller belongs on the list for a room used for video calls or editing, where you want the option of shutting the light out entirely.

Openness, widths and motors

Openness is set by the fabric rather than the hardware, so choose the percentage first. Most sunscreen goods run on 118 inch rolls, which gives solar the most width headroom of anything we make. On our squared cassette a solar shade reaches 94 1/2 by 118 inches, and light filtering roller on the same cassette reaches 98 3/8 by 137 3/4 inches. One rule catches people out: if the fabric is milled narrower than the system maximum, the fabric width becomes the maximum, and a couple of our series run on 90 inch and 90.6 inch rolls and cannot fill a 96 inch opening on any cassette. Anything over 100 inches high moves to the 43 mm tube and the large cassette, which is a load question rather than a preference.

Motorizing is worth it if you want the shade to move on a schedule rather than when you remember. Check minimum width first, since a motorized roller needs 8 to 10 inches more than the manual version. Our AC152-06 remote supports time control, so the shade can drop before the afternoon sun arrives. The Matter motor talks to Apple HomePod and HomeKit directly, the Zigbee motor reaches five specific Echo devices with no hub, and everything else needs an RF hub.

Measuring and installing it yourself

Measure the opening itself rather than an existing blind, and take the width in three places, since an older window is the one most likely to be out of square. For an inside mount, take 1/4 inch off the measured width. For an outside mount, add about 3 7/8 inches to width and height. On a glare problem, outside mount is often the better call, because it stops the strip of raw light at the edge of the frame.

Fitting needs a 6 mm drill bit, and the brackets mark at 1.1 inch screw spacing. Two types of expansion anchor ship in the box, so match the anchor to your wall rather than using whichever is on top. Each bracket has four pre-drilled holes and two screws on opposite sides hold fine on a sound wall. Hook the valance groove onto the bracket latch, press back until it clicks, then confirm the top and the rear have both locked.

Order samples before committing to an openness percentage, because a 1% and a 5% screen are hard to tell apart in a photograph. Everything here carries a limited lifetime warranty against defects, with motors and controls covered for five years.