Roller Shades & Blinds for Sliding Glass Doors

A sliding glass door needs a covering that disappears when you want the view and closes cleanly when you don't. Roller shades do that with a single flat panel of fabric that rolls up into a slim cassette above the glass. The usual question is whether one roller shade can cover the door, and on most sliders it can. Every shade here is made to the size you measure and shipped direct to you.

Which roller shade suits your slider

Light filtering roller shades are the everyday choice for a family room or kitchen slider. They soften daylight and give privacy from the yard while the room stays bright.

Solar shades are for keeping the view. The fabric comes in set openness levels, so you can choose how much of the garden or pool stays visible while the shade takes the edge off the sun. Order solar samples in 1%, 3% and 5% to compare them against your own glass.

Blackout roller shades are for a slider that opens off a bedroom or a media room, where the aim is a dark room.

On a large expanse of glass, color carries more weight. A pale fabric keeps the room bright; a darker one frames the view like a dark door frame. If the slider sits next to windows, use the same fabric on all of them.

Width, height and the larger cassette

Width is the number that decides a slider. On our standard squared cassette, a light filtering roller shade reaches 98 3/8 inches wide and 137 3/4 inches high. Blackout and solar fabrics are milled on narrower rolls, so they stop at 94 1/2 inches wide and 118 inches high on the same cassette. That covers a typical 6-foot door with room to spare, and an 8-foot door in light filtering.

For a wider or taller door there is a larger cassette with a larger 43 mm tube, which builds up to 118 inches wide and 120 inches high with a chain or a motor. Any roller shade over 100 inches high moves to that system. There is one more check on a wide order: if the fabric roll is narrower than the system maximum, the fabric sets the limit. Most of our fabrics come on 110 inch or 118 inch rolls, but a few are narrower, so confirm your fabric before you configure a door near the top of the range.

Operation matters on a door used all day. A cordless roller shade needs at least 23 5/8 inches of width on the standard cassette. A motorized shade needs at least 20 1/8 inches and runs from a remote, a wall switch or an app, working with Alexa, Google Home and Apple HomePod. A rechargeable power wand sits in between. If the door handle sticks out into the opening, a reverse roll hangs the fabric off the front of the tube so it clears the handle.

Measuring and installing it yourself

Decide on the mount first. Outside mount, on the wall above the door, is the usual choice on a slider because the shade clears the handle and the track and overlaps the frame so less light leaks around the edges. Inside mount works where the frame has room and nothing projects into the opening. Measure the width at the top, middle and bottom and the height on both sides, and send us the exact figures. The factory applies its own deductions for the tube, fabric and bottom bar.

The cassette hangs on two brackets. Drill with a 6 mm bit, mark the screws at 1.1 inch spacing, and pick the anchor that suits your wall, since drywall and masonry anchors both come in the box. Each bracket has four pre-drilled holes; two screws on opposite sides hold on a sound wall, and above a door it is worth using all four. Hook the valance groove onto the bracket latch, press back until it clicks, and confirm the top and rear are both locked before you let go.

Order samples to see the fabric against your own door, then send us the width and height and we will build it to measure.