Skylight Shades & Blinds

A skylight brings daylight into the middle of a room, which is wonderful until you want to sleep in, watch a screen in the afternoon, or keep a bedroom dark. Most window coverings are designed to hang straight down from a headrail, so an opening set into a ceiling needs something that holds its shape on its own. This page is built around ZeroGlow, our framed blackout shade, made to fit the opening you measure.

ZeroGlow: a framed blackout shade for skylights

ZeroGlow blackout shades are the product on this page. Each one is a 25 mm cellular shade held inside an edge-to-edge frame, so the honeycomb fabric is enclosed on every side rather than hanging free. The fabric is blackout, the lift is cordless, and you choose whether the shade travels up and down the glass or side to side, so you can pick the direction that suits each opening.

You pick the fabric from six colors, White, Black, Beige, Light Gray, Dark Gray and Straw, and the frame from three. A few design notes. On a white ceiling, White or Light Gray fabric in a matching frame keeps the skylight looking like part of the ceiling when the shade is closed. In a room with wood beams or a stained ceiling, Straw or Beige sits more comfortably against the wood. Black or Dark Gray suits a media room, where you want the opening to disappear once the lights go down. If you have more than one skylight in the same room, use the same color on each so the ceiling reads as one surface.

ZeroGlow also works in ordinary windows when you want full blackout without drilling, which is why you will find it on our bedroom, nursery and shift-work pages as well.

What to know before you order

ZeroGlow is built to your opening, and you can give your measurements in inches or millimeters. Because the frame presses into the opening rather than hanging from brackets, the size you send is the size the frame is made to, so measure carefully.

It is a cordless shade, so there is nothing hanging down from a ceiling opening, and it is listed as energy efficient. It is not a motorized or remote-controlled shade, so if you need to operate a skylight that is out of reach, plan for that before you order. Shades for the outside of a skylight are a different product and are not something we make.

Installing ZeroGlow yourself

There is no drilling into the ceiling, the skylight frame or the trim. Installation takes three steps.

First, lay the frame pieces on a soft, flat surface and join the corners to assemble the frame. Second, apply the rubber weather strip around the outside edges of the assembled frame, which is what lets it seal snugly against the opening. Third, position the frame inside the skylight opening and gently press the front of the frame into place. Working overhead is easier with a second person and a stable step ladder, and it helps to assemble the frame on the floor before you go up.

Measure the opening the frame will sit in, check it more than once, and order one shade per skylight even if two look the same, since ceiling openings are often a little different from each other.

A skylight should be something you enjoy, not something you work around at bedtime. Choose your fabric and frame colors, send the size of each opening, and we will make every ZeroGlow shade to measure and ship it direct to your door.