Home Theater & Media Room Shades & Blinds

A home theater or media room needs a different kind of dark from a bedroom. The goal is not sleep but contrast: any daylight on the screen washes out the picture, and a bright rim around the window pulls your eye away from it. These rooms also get used in the afternoon, when the sun is at its strongest. The shades here are chosen for how completely they close a window, and each one is made to the size you measure and shipped direct to you.

Which shades darken a media room

Blackout roller shades are the first choice. Our blackout roller fabrics are rated at 100% blackout, the face is a single flat panel with no folds or seams, and when you raise the shade it winds away into a cassette at the head of the window, so the wall reads clean when the lights come up.

Blackout cellular shades close the window with a pleated cell, which suits a basement or bonus room media space where the window is small, set high, or runs cold. Cordless cellular builds down to 12 inches wide and 12 inches high, handy for the short, awkward windows these rooms often have.

Woven wood shades are the choice when the media room doubles as a family room and you want natural texture rather than a flat fabric. Ordered with a blackout liner the shade is 100% blackout, and the liner goes on the valance as well, so the head of the window is closed too. Dark gray and black are among the nine liner colors.

Light gaps, cassette sizes and motors

A 100% blackout fabric stops light passing through the shade, not around it. An inside mounted shade is built slightly narrower than the opening so it clears the frame, which leaves a thin line of light at each side. For a theater, mounting outside the frame is the better call. On cellular, add about 3 7/8 inches to both width and height so the shade overlaps the opening, and go wider still if the wall allows.

Size limits follow the fabric. Blackout roller reaches 94 1/2 inches wide and 118 inches high on our standard squared cassette, while the smaller cassettes stop at 86 inches because blackout goods are milled on narrower rolls. Past 100 inches high, the shade moves to the large cassette and a 43 mm tube, up to 118 by 120 inches. Woven wood tops out at 96 inches wide on every lift system, with multiple shades on one headrail reaching 118 inches in total.

Motors make sense in a room you run from the couch. A motorized roller needs 8 to 10 inches more minimum width than a manual one, starting at 20 1/8 inches on the standard squared cassette. Motorized cellular starts at 23 inches wide and caps at 79 inches high. For a dedicated room with an outlet nearby, the AC plug-in motor runs on 100 to 240 V and never needs charging, and it reaches voice assistants through a hub. Battery motors charge in about four hours. Every motor stores six positions, so you can save a half-open setting for daytime viewing alongside fully closed.

Measuring and installing them yourself

Measure the width at the top, middle and bottom and the height on both sides, and use the smallest figures. For a woven wood inside mount you need at least 1 5/8 inches of frame depth, or 2 5/8 inches to sit flush. Roller and cellular shades hang from brackets fitted with a 6 mm drill bit, with screw holes spaced 1.1 inches apart and both drywall and masonry anchors in the box. On the cassette bracket, hook the valance groove onto the latch, press back until it clicks, then confirm the top and rear have both locked.

On the screen wall, choose a dark fabric or liner and a black or grey cassette so nothing pale sits in your peripheral vision. Cassettes come in white, beige, grey and black. Order samples and hold them against the window with a film paused to see how each one reads in a dark room.