Vertical Blinds & Shades for Apartments

Many apartments come with a wide sliding glass door to a balcony and a builder-grade covering that has seen better days. Replacing it is one of the quickest ways to make a rental feel like your own, but it raises practical questions: what fits a door that wide, what can you put up without upsetting the lease, and what will move with you to the next place. This page gathers made-to-measure vertical blinds and shades for apartment doors and windows, with options for the living room slider and for a bedroom that needs to be properly dark.

Vertical blinds and the shades to compare

Vertical blinds lead the page. They are the look most people picture on a balcony slider, and a fresh made-to-measure set replaces a tired original with one sized to your opening.

Zebra shades are a modern alternative for the same door. Alternating sheer and solid bands let you line up a filtered view or offset the bands for privacy, and zebra is built only in a cassette for a clean finish at the top.

Light filtering roller shades and blackout roller shades cover the windows around the slider in the same simple profile, light filtering for the living area and blackout for the bedroom.

ZeroGlow is the bedroom option for renters. It is a 25 mm blackout cellular shade held in a slim edge-to-edge frame that presses into the window opening, so there is nothing to drill. It is cordless, travels either up and down or side to side, and comes in six fabric colors, White, Black, Beige, Light Gray, Dark Gray and Straw, with a choice of three frame colors.

A few design notes. Apartment walls are usually a landlord white or off-white, so white, beige or light gray coverings blend in now and suit the next home too. Use one color for the slider and the windows in the same room so the wall reads as a set.

Sizing a wide door and the windows around it

On our standard squared cassette, light filtering roller shades reach 98 3/8 inches wide and 137 3/4 inches high, while blackout fabric stops at 94 1/2 inches wide and 118 inches high because it is milled on narrower rolls. A door wider than that takes two shades side by side. Motorized shades need at least 20 1/8 inches of width and cordless at least 23 5/8 inches on that cassette.

ZeroGlow is built to the size of your opening, in inches or millimetres, and it sits inside the window opening, so measure the opening itself rather than the trim around it. For vertical blinds, check the size and control options on the vertical blinds product page as you configure your order.

Measuring and installing it yourself

Measure the width at the top, middle and bottom and the height on both sides, and write every number down. For an inside-mount roller shade, use the smallest width and send us the exact opening; the deduction is applied at the factory when the shade is made.

Roller and zebra shades go up on a cassette bracket screwed through at least two of its four pre-drilled holes, on opposite sides, with a 6 mm (0.2 inch) bit, and both drywall and masonry anchors come in the box. Hook the valance groove onto the bracket latch, press it back until it clicks, and check that the top and rear are both locked. If you rent, check your lease before you drill.

ZeroGlow installs in three steps with no drill. Join the frame corners on a soft, flat surface, fit the rubber weather strip around the outside edges so the frame seals against the opening, then set it in the window and press the front gently until it is seated.

A balcony door and a dark bedroom are the two windows that make an apartment feel settled. Choose vertical blinds or a shade for the slider and ZeroGlow for the bedroom, send us your sizes, and we will make each one to measure and ship it direct to your door.