Minimalist Shades and Blinds

Minimalism is less about owning a particular shade and more about removing what you do not need to see. In a pared-back room the window covering is often the busiest thing left: a dangling cord, a bulky headrail, a patterned valance. Minimalist window treatments do their job and then step back. This page gathers the made-to-measure shades and blinds we build with the fewest visible parts.

Shades and blinds that keep a room quiet

Light filtering and blackout roller shades are the purest form here. One flat plane of fabric, nothing folds, and when the shade is raised it rolls away into a squared cassette at the head of the window. Light filtering suits a living space, blackout a bedroom.

Solar shades keep the view, which in many minimalist rooms is the main decoration. The sunscreen fabric comes at 1, 3, 5 and 10 percent openness, blocking roughly 80, 70, 60 and 50 percent of the light in turn, so you cut glare and keep the outlook.

Zebra shades layer sheer and solid bands in one cassette-built shade, so you move from filtered light to a closed face without a second covering.

Light filtering cellular shades give a soft, even face with the honeycomb structure hidden inside the fabric. ZeroGlow suits a minimalist bedroom that needs real darkness: a blackout cellular shade held in a slim edge-to-edge frame, cordless, with no brackets on the wall at all. The fabric comes in six colors including White, Beige and Light Gray, and the frame in three.

Faux wood blinds are here for rooms that want a little more line. Plain horizontal slats repeat the clean geometry of a minimalist interior.

A few design notes. Pick one color and use it on every window in the room, so the coverings read as part of the architecture rather than objects. Match the cassette to the wall, not the fabric.

The details that keep hardware out of sight

On roller and zebra shades the squared cassette measures 3 1/2 by 3 1/2 inches and comes in white, beige, grey or black. It can also be wrapped in the shade fabric, so the head of the window reads as one surface. Bottom bars come in three profiles, the slimmest at 1 1/16 by 1/2 inch, in the same four colors.

Cordless lift removes the last loose part. There are no cords to hang or tie back, which also makes it child and pet safe. On the squared cassette a cordless roller shade needs at least 23 5/8 inches of width. Motorization goes further and takes the control off the window entirely: a remote, a wall switch or an app, with Alexa, Google Home and Apple HomePod supported. A motorized roller on the squared cassette needs at least 20 1/8 inches of width, against 11 3/4 inches for a chain.

Light filtering roller reaches 98 3/8 inches wide on the squared cassette, while blackout and sunscreen fabrics stop at 94 1/2 inches. A cordless cellular shade builds up to 94 inches wide and high.

Measuring and installing it yourself

An inside mount gives the cleanest look, with the shade sitting within the window frame. Measure the width at the top, middle and bottom, and use the smallest figure rounded down to the nearest 1/8 inch. Measure the height on both sides. For a cellular shade mounted inside, the shade is built 1/4 inch narrower than the opening so it clears the frame.

Roller and zebra shades mount on a cassette bracket using a 6 mm drill bit. Fix each bracket through at least two of its four pre-drilled holes on opposite sides, hook the groove at the top of the valance onto the bracket latch, and press back until it clicks. Check that the top and the rear have both locked before you let go. ZeroGlow needs no drill: join the frame corners on a soft, flat surface, fit the rubber weather strip around the outside edges, and press the frame into the opening.

Send us your sizes and we will make each shade to measure and ship it direct to your door.