Roman Shades & Blinds for Bay Windows

A bay window is three or more windows set at angles, and it is often the feature the room is built around. That makes it hard to dress. A single curtain rod fights the angles, and blinds can look busy across several panes. Roman shades and blinds for bay windows give every pane its own soft, folded shade, so the bay reads as one considered piece while each window still opens and closes on its own. Every shade is made to measure pane by pane and shipped direct to you.

Roman shade options for a bay

Three products suit a bay, and the room usually decides between them. Light filtering roman shades are the usual choice in a living room or breakfast bay: they soften strong light, keep the room bright, and screen the view in from the street. Blackout roman shades suit a bay in a bedroom, where each pane needs to close off fully at night.

Woven wood roman shades bring natural texture and warmth to a bay, which suits a traditional or farmhouse room. They come in flat fold, waterfall and hobbled styles, and you can add a light filtering or blackout liner, which goes on both the shade and the valance. Without a liner the weave is roughly 50 percent see-through.

A bay has corners, and the sides of each headrail can show where the panes meet. On woven wood shades, valance returns are complimentary on request and match the valance height, which tidies those corners. Valance height follows shade height: 6 inches up to 59 inches of drop, 8 inches from 59 to 86 5/8 inches, and 12 inches above that. If your panes are close in height, order them so they fall in the same band and every valance across the bay lines up.

For style, keep one fabric and one fold across all panes. A bay is seen as a whole, and mixing fabrics breaks the curve or angle that makes it worth having.

Sizes, lifts and depth

Most bays have a wide center pane and narrower side panes, so check both ends of the range. On woven wood:

• Every system reaches 96 inches wide. Wider runs can take multiple shades on one headrail, up to 118 inches in total, though a common valance still stops at 96 inches.
• Clutch and loop builds from 11 3/4 inches wide and the standard DC motor from 12 3/4 inches, so both suit slim side panes.
• Cordless starts at 19 3/4 inches, and lithium ion and AC motors at 25 1/4 inches.
• Cordless reaches 106 inches of drop, and clutch, wand and motors reach 118 inches.
• An inside mount needs at least 1 5/8 inches of frame depth, and 2 5/8 inches (2 1/8 inches on cordless) for a flush fit.

Fabric roman shades are built in a squared cassette in white, beige, grey or black, so the hardware can match your trim. If you motorize the bay, one multi-channel remote offers up to 16 channels, and a six-channel remote with time control can lower every pane on a schedule.

Measuring and installing it yourself

Measure and label each pane separately, left to right, and order one shade per pane. Do not average the panes; bays that look even rarely are. For an inside mount on woven wood, measure the width at the top, middle and bottom of each pane and use the smallest, then the height on each side and use the smallest, both rounded down to the nearest 1/8 inch. Send us exact figures, since the factory takes its own 1/4 inch off the width.

Fabric roman shades hang on two cassette brackets per shade. Drill with a 6 mm (0.2 inch) bit, set the screws at 1.1 inch spacing, and use the anchor that matches your wall, drywall or masonry. Each bracket has four pre-drilled holes for a weak wall or a wide shade. Hook the valance onto the latch, press back until it clicks, and confirm the top and rear are both locked.

Order a fabric or woven wood sample to see it in your bay in morning and evening light, then send us the size of each pane.