People are designed for light. Our emotions get tied up in how light around us is filtered, and where it comes from. Think of the feeling you get from a warehouse lit with bright cool-white LEDs, a small stained glass window in a dark cathedral, or five days straight of gray, rainy skies. How about the feeling of fresh white sheets shining on a clothesline in spring, a rainbow in the mist from a waterfall, or the sun breaking from the clouds on the edge of the ocean. People want light in their home—lots of light. Enter modern home design with wide spans of glass.
In rooms that have decent views of the outdoors, privacy needs can pose a dilemma. Builders, architects, and homeowners don’t create pleasant views by mistake, and the last thing they want is to block the view they worked for. To stop glare they may resort to window tinting, but privacy is still a problem. At night the lighting in the home makes it easy to see inside. To make things worse the people inside would not know if someone was looking at them because the outside looks dark. A great solution is a window covering that does not obstruct the view during the day, but gives total privacy at night.
Roller shades, when raised, leave the view unobstructed. They have the smallest “stack.” Stack is the gathering of fabric or stack of slats that forms when blinds are raised. (Stack height technically refers to blinds and cellular/roman shades, gather refers to drapes, and roll diameter is relevant for roller shades.) If you want privacy, smooth and durable operation, a wide range of fabric selection and the option to automate then roller shades are a great start. They can be hidden in their own custom fascia and when raised they nearly disappear from being a design element in the room whatsoever.
Cellular shades are better at blending in with the color of your window trim. Also called honeycomb shades or pleated shades, cellulars create total privacy when lowered. When raised they have a slightly larger stack than roller shades. Roller shades are also more durable and longer lasting. However, if you really want the stack of the window treatment to blend in honeycomb shades can do the job. A recent customer with a window nearly 130 inches wide wanted one single shade and for it to blend in when raised. A white fabric cellular shade did the job. It was visible but unnoticed.
So, why can’t I just get a white roller shade? Why do cellular shades blend in better? Great questions, the answer has to do with jam depth. The depth of the jam is the distance from the wall plane to the actual window frame—usually around 2 inches. Roller shades with a fascia take up about 4 inches of depth so they stick out a little. This adds a little prominence to the fascia. Cellular shades have a depth of (+/-)2 inches and so they appear more seamless in the window when raised—almost like an additional piece of window trim.