Vertical Blinds & Shades for Sliding Glass Doors

A sliding glass door is the widest opening in most rooms and the one you walk through every day, so whatever covers it has to move out of the way and still give you privacy at night. That is why so many sliders wear vertical blinds: the vanes hang straight down and draw to the side, so you can step outside without lifting anything. This page pairs our made-to-measure vertical blinds with the cellular and solar shades people most often compare them with, each built to your size and shipped direct.

Vertical blinds and the shades to compare

Vertical blinds lead this page. They are the like-for-like replacement for the verticals that came with the house, and the natural choice when the door is in use all day.

Light filtering cellular shades are the soft alternative for a family room slider. The honeycomb fabric diffuses daylight evenly across the glass and lifts to the top of the door when you want to walk through.

Blackout cellular shades suit a slider that opens off a bedroom, where the aim is a dark room rather than a view.

Solar shades are for a door that takes hard afternoon sun. The fabric comes in set openness levels, and solar samples in 1%, 3% and 5% let you compare them against your own glass before you order.

A few design notes. On a wide door, a pale color close to the wall keeps the room feeling open and lets the door read as part of the wall. If the slider sits beside windows, use the same color on all of them so the whole wall looks planned. Darker colors frame a garden view and suit a black door frame.

Sizes for a wide door

Size limits and configuration options for our vertical blinds are set on the product page as you build the blind, so check them there against your door. If your slider is unusually wide or tall, send us the measurements and we will confirm what can be made.

Cellular shades depend on how you operate them, and width is where they differ most on a slider. With a bead chain they reach 197 inches wide and 157 inches high, enough for a wide multi-panel door in one shade. Cordless cellular shades go to 94 inches wide and 94 inches high. Motorized cellular shades reach 126 inches wide but stop at 79 inches high, so on a full-height door check the height before you choose a motor. A bead chain cellular shade needs at least 18 inches of width and a motorized one at least 23 inches.

Solar shades are built on our roller system. On the standard cassette, solar fabric reaches 94 1/2 inches wide and 118 inches high. Any roller shade over 100 inches high moves to a larger tube and a larger cassette, and when a fabric roll is narrower than the system, the fabric sets the maximum.

Measuring and installing it yourself

Decide first whether the covering sits inside the door frame or mounts on the wall above it. On a slider, mounting above the frame is the usual choice because it clears the handle and the track. Measure the width at the top, middle and bottom and the height on both sides, and write every number down. For a cellular shade mounted outside the frame, add about 3 7/8 inches to both width and height so the shade overlaps the opening and closes the light gap. Slide the door open and closed with the tape in place to check that the handle clears the space the covering will hang in.

Solar shades hang on a cassette bracket. Drill with a 6 mm bit, fix each bracket through at least two of its four pre-drilled holes on opposite sides (all four above a door), and use the anchor that matches your wall. Hook the valance groove onto the bracket latch, press back until it clicks, and check the top and rear are both locked.

Order samples to see them in your own light, then send your door's width and height and we will make it to measure.