Top Down Bottom Up Blackout Shades & Blinds

A street-facing bedroom poses two problems at once. At night you want the room dark. By day you want daylight without the people on the sidewalk looking in. A standard blackout shade makes you choose: down for privacy and a dim room, or up for light and no privacy at all. A top down bottom up blackout shade separates the two. Lower the top rail to let sky and daylight in above eye level while the lower glass stays covered, then close the shade fully at night for a dark room.

Blackout cellular or woven wood with a blackout liner

Blackout cellular shades lead this page. On the top down bottom up version, the top rail and the bottom rail move independently, so you can open a band of glass at the top, at the bottom, or anywhere in between. You can run it cordless, with a dual bead chain, or motorized. A motorized top down bottom up shade takes two motors, one for each rail, because both rails travel on their own.

Woven wood shades are the choice for a bedroom that wants natural texture. On its own a woven shade lets light through the weave, but with a blackout liner it becomes a 100% blackout shade, and the liner is applied to both the shade and the valance. Woven wood offers top down bottom up as a lift style, and a valance gives it a finished look. Note that the movable liner, the version you raise separately from the shade, is not compatible with top down bottom up. Natural fabrics are also not suited to high-humidity rooms, so keep woven wood out of bathrooms.

A few design notes. In a bedroom, a mid-tone or neutral color hides the small shadows at the edges of a closed shade better than bright white. If the room has several windows, set every shade to the same top-down height during the day so the line across the glass stays level. With woven wood, pick a blackout liner color close to your wall so the back of the shade looks tidy from outside.

Size limits for top down bottom up

Cordless top down bottom up cellular builds from 12 inches wide and as little as 8 inches high, up to 98 inches wide and 94 inches high, which covers most bedroom windows. Dual bead chain starts at 19 inches wide and reaches 197 inches wide and 157 inches high, the answer for a very wide or tall opening. Motorized needs at least 23 inches of width and reaches 126 inches wide, but stops at 79 inches high, so a tall window is better served by bead chain.

Woven wood reaches 96 inches wide on every lift system. Cordless needs at least 19 3/4 inches of width and stops at 106 inches high, while clutch loop starts at 11 3/4 inches wide and reaches 118 inches high. Wider openings take more than one shade on a single headrail, up to 118 inches in total.

Measuring and installing it yourself

For a cellular shade mounted inside the frame, measure the width at the top, middle and bottom, use the smallest, and take 1/4 inch off so the shade clears the frame. For the darkest result, consider an outside mount: the usual allowance is about 3 7/8 inches added to both width and height, so the shade overlaps the glass and cuts light at the edges.

For woven wood, measure the width at the top, center and bottom and use the smallest, rounded down to the nearest 1/8 inch. Measure the height on each side the same way. Check the depth of the frame too: inside mount needs at least 1 5/8 inches, and 2 5/8 inches for a flush fit. Give us the exact measurements and the deduction is applied when the shade is made.

Daylight in the morning and a dark room at night should not mean two different window coverings. Choose blackout cellular or lined woven wood, send us the size of each window, and we will make each top down bottom up shade to measure and ship it direct to your door.