There are many aspects of decor where the old saying, "you get what you pay for," certainly holds true, but when it comes to Roman shades, it's not always the case. Many custom shades, like those we've been dreaming about from Smith + Noble, seem to be worth their price tag according to friends. However, when it comes to shades from pottery barn many big name retailers, our personal experience has shown us that price tends to reflect the big brand name rather than the quality. All of these seem to strike a decent balance between price and quality.
FIRST ROW
• 1 West Elm's Jute/ Poly Roman Shade We know friends who have had these for several years and still love them. They add bit of natural texture and just enough privacy.
• 2 Overstock's Kyoto Cappuccino Roman Shade
• 3 Overstock's Serenity Rice Paper Roman Shade. These are beautiful for letting in soft diffused natural light.
• 4 JC Penny's Linden Street Joshua Cordless Roman
• 5 JC Penny's Caruth Roman Shade
SECOND ROW
• 6 Pearl River's Natural Matchstick Bamboo Blinds. We found this while shooting photos for an upcoming house tour (see the picture below) and fell in love with the way they filtered the light and the crazy low price tag.
• 7 Pearl River's Linen Cloth Blinds. A good basic no frills, texture-adding alternative to mini blinds.
• 8 Amazon's Lewis Hyman Elegant Fabric Roman Shade.
• 9 Overstock's Twill Khaki Roman
• 10 Target's Global Home Jute Roman Shade. We've had these in two homes to great effect.
If you're hoping to add more character to these standard roman shades and blinds, check out this previous post on how to customize your look.
(Bottom Image: Leah Moss)
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I've had great luck with inexpensive bamboo shades from World Market.
I second the recommendation for the West Elm jute/poly shades. I have them in my Family room, and they look great. I actually customized the length fairly easily to perfectly fit my small windows. I'm very pleased with them.
Thank you for the great article on Roman Shades! We just moved into an apartment where I have installed Roman Shades in the living room. Very nice ones from Bed Bath & Beyond.
http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/product.asp?order_num=-1&SKU=16280593
My only dilemma is should I leave the windows alone with the roman shades? Or..what kind of window treatments do you suggest I can use as far as curtains? Thank you in advance for any feedback.
Roman shades are one of the easiet DIY projects around. If you can sew, you already know how easy it is. If you can't sew, then this could be the ideal first project.
mron73--
Those roman shades you have are all the window coverings you need.
If they were plain shades w/out the box trim or matchstick/woven woods - then it would make sense to layer the windowcoverings, but putting something else over these would be like someone going out in a blouse and a skirt over a pair of pants.
I was thinking of using roman shades in my new condo - so this is a great post! I really like that first one.
Are there roman shades made for large (width) windows? One of mine is 48" across and I haven't found any that big.
thank you. exactly what I needed!
I have natural woven blinds from Target and I love them! Easy to install and only $27/each window. Fabulous deal.
I have matchstick blinds that I found at Big Lots; the 24" were $5, 36" were $6 and the 48" were $7. They had many different colors also.
i don't understand how cordless roman shades work? how do you raise them?
Bepsf,
Thanks for the feedback. It does make sense to leave it the way it is. At some point I will change the roman shades I have to a solid color and at that point look at adding curtains :).
San Francisco victorian windows are longer than the standard 72" length blinds and shades. I ended up finding the elusive 84" long matchstick blinds at Home Depot and they were very reasonably priced (no more than $20).