Of all places, JC Penney actually has attractive custom shades for good prices, and they often have sales that bring the prices even lower.

We've placed customer orders through the website and never had a problem. It's worth waiting for a sale.

A few examples:
http://www4.jcpenney.com/jcp/ProductsHOM.aspx?ItemID=15553b2&GrpTyp=ENS&CmCatId=
http://www4.jcpenney.com/jcp/ProductsHOM.aspx?ItemID=156b82e&GrpTyp=ENS&CmCatId=
http://www4.jcpenney.com/jcp/ProductsHOM.aspx?ItemID=156b559&GrpTyp=ENS&CmCatId=crosssell

What constitutes affordable? I got custom shades from Budget Blinds in Park Slope. The price seemed pretty reasonable to me -- not cheap, but not outrageous, either -- and they look great.

I don't know where you can get custom shades made, but I made my own using these directions.

http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Roman-Shade

after all it is DIY Month. The project took me about 1.5 for each shade and they look great.

For my apartment , I decided to make my own roman shades and they are fantastic. Terrell Sundermann has an amazing website that explains in great detail how to make your own shades. I was able to make shades for 5 windows for under $200.

http://www.terrelldesigns.com/howtomakeromanshades.htm

do you not sew at all?? these are incredibly easy to make!

i've made them for many friends as well as myself.

Blinds To Go. My parents used them for wooden blinds and were extremely happy.

Smith and Noble has nice looking custom shades and will send you samples of their shade material for free. I may not be as crafty as the people above, but I tried to make roman shades once and thought it was difficult enough that I would have someone else do it.

Here's the best tutorial I have seen, with photos. I got the stuff to make mine at JoAnn's and Home Depot this past weekend. For three blinds, I got the blackout liner (reg. $5.99 a yard on sale for half off), cords, brass rings, cleats for under $30, and the wood and metal pieces for about $15. I had outer fabric, screws and eye hooks. I figure three shades will take less than a day of putzing around, and that long only because I will work slowly on the hand sewing of the rings.

http://jenduncan.typepad.com/whats_new/2008/11/roman-blind-tutorial-in-20-pictures-or-less.html

Sometimes your local dry cleaner has an alterations department that will take on custom projects priced very reasonably. Mine has turned extra curtains into bedskirts (lined silk $50 bucks) and made pillow covers ($15). I would not hesitate to ask them for window treatments if the need arose. I would be prepared with a pattern or a picture at least.

I've used Shade Store for both roller shades and roman shades. The service is good, product quality is nice, but I don't know about price. Our roman shade in dupioni silk was something like $400, for a standard (albeit somewhat tall) window.

Perfect timing. I have floor to ceiling windows almost and the cost of having blinds made was out of the question. (Even the JC Penny ones, but they were pretty nice looking.)

I'm going to make my own!

Have you tried Etsy (www.etsy.com)? You can request custom items! I am currently having custom curtains made, but the seller had originally offered to make Roman shades. I sent her the fabric, and what she charged for labor was cheap!

Wow thanks everyone. I was a little nervous about the JCPenney option. I know they range normally from like 200-400 and some of the JCP options were really cheap.
But I will def check these out!

We have non-custom roman shades from JC Penney on two sets of French doors in our living room. They were $15 each on sale, they look nice, and they've held up well during the last six or so years of use.

The custom shades will cost more, of course, but I think you'll get good quality for the cost.

The Company Store has a number of sizes and also does custom sizes for their linen pole-top Roman Shade (on sale, last I checked). It's cheapo, but only comes in a few solid colours.

http://www.thecompanystore.com/parent/Windows Shades/3732/GM95X/&An=102&A=14

http://www.thecompanystore.com/parent/Clearance Home Decor/7550/ZL38X/&An=102&A=1635

Amanda Hi,

I wish I had seen your question earlier I am in the window treatments business and I agree with the first comment custom and affordable do not always go together.And unless you are very handy, doing it yourself the "right way" is not so easy.

Nevertheless if you are thinking of custom made there are a lot of brands to choose from such as Graber, Prestige Window Fashion, Cofortex, Castec and Hunter Douglas.
Most brands have several degrees of price point for their products but you can find a lot of color samples and fabrics and most important those shades will last a bit longer than the $ 30 blinds you buy and have to through away after a year.

You can google any of the above brands and look for a local dealer near you to get pricing. Most companies will come to measure and install it too.

Hope this comment helped you or any of the other readers feel free to email me if you have any questions
tom@horizonyc.com

My husband and I just ordered two custom roman blinds (very simple white cotton duck) for our (very boring) french doors from www.getblinds.com for under $200 total. The customer service was INCREDIBLE - we emailed them at 9:00pm on a Friday and they had called us by 9am Saturday morning. Our first time around they didn't quite fit (they've since fixed the measuring instructions on their website to make them clearer), and they made new ones, no questions asked. I asked if I could send them the old blinds back, they told me that they trusted me and that I should use them elsewhere or give them to charity. Fabulous, right? Love this place.

Hi, unfortunately the above mentioned places do not have the fabric I'm looking for: toile...
Can anyone else recommend other places/websites?
I am not a DIY kind of girl, since I don't have a steady hand. Thanks!

Amanda,

Any luck on the shades? I am in the same situation and need some roman shades fast before I host a holiday party! Looked at the suggestions and am not happy with the fabric as well. My room is very modern and I would like geometric pattern or simple stripe look but can't seem to find a thing.

Hoping you can help,
D Joan

If you are in the Boston area, check out Elma Blake Interiors. Another source is Acquire Boutique in Boston. They offer design services and I am quite sure they would be able to find great geometric fabric

Amada, I've made Roman shades for 38 years. They are deceptively simple in appearance. Windows are rarely perfectly square and even if they were it is difficult to make anything that size out of fabric square, not to mention perfectly the right width and length.

Ideally fabric should be pre-washed or dry cleaned before fabrication. (Fabric shrinks more in length than width.) I usually made them with an extra fold or two at the bottom so length is not a problem and I like the look. But if they shrink in width there is nothing to be done except adding a trim or border to the edges. An expensive prospect.

Usually shades are stapled to a dustboard making them difficult to remove for future cleaning. We use Velcro to attach the shade to the dustboard allowing you to remove the shade leaving the cords in place for easier re-installation. More expensive but worth it in the long run.

I saw shades in a French Quarter window that could have been 100 years old! The fabric had seen better days but they were still doing the job so, if treated properly, they are a good investment. (If you use a neutral color you can change the rest of the room in the future and your shades will still work.) Important: make sure they use brass rings. The plastic ones will soon become brittle and break.

A soft Roman shade has only two cords and sets of rings on left and right. They should be a little less expensive since rows of rings for a flat Roman like the picture are spaced about 8 inches apart. A soft Roman has a slight curve at the bottom since there are only rings at the sides and thus gives the shade a softer look. It's the style all the architects and designers we work with are doing here in New York City. We made them for Mary-Louis Parker's bedroom.

Soft Romans work best unlined out of a light weight fabric so that they drape nicely at the bottom. But unlined, the face fabric will not last as long from sun damage (silk is particularly susceptible).

You can also do Roman school shades that lower from the top down giving you privacy with a view out the top of the window. They can also be made to go up from the bottom at the same time so you can have both looks. However, they require guide cords from the top to bottom of the window attached to screw eyes. This makes them a little more difficult to remove for cleaning. And flat Romans require a guide cord for each row of rings so when they are lowered you see all those cords but it's a look. Also you see the screw eyes at the top unless there is a little valance made to cover them.

The more perfectly they fit width wise the less light will come through the sides. If they are mounted closer to the window inside the frame less light will come from the edge. We usually mount them half way back.

You can make Roman shades out of anything that will fold. A bar in New Orleans has leather shades. You can line and even interline them for better insulation and sound reduction.
—Thomas Lynn Pool, director of design, neodesigninc@gmail.com Send me a photograph!

I moved into this somewhat old apartment a few month's ago, and it need ALOT of work to get to feel homely! I did my research and contacted a bunch of different companies to help dress up the (awful) windows in my apt. and finally went with Sonic Blinds. They did a fantastic job and i couldnt be happier.

Their website address is <ahref=http://www.sonicblinds.com/>http://www.sonicblinds.com/