Two upstairs rooms with the same long, wide window and two very different jobs. One is a home office, the other is a music room. Both got top down bottom up cellular shades.
Why pick cellular shades for a home office in La Jolla?
They cut glare on a screen without turning the room into a cave. That is what this office needed, and cellular shades in a light neutral do it well.
The window here is long and wide, set high on the wall under a sloped ceiling, with framed diplomas and certificates hung right up to the edge of the trim. Afternoon light comes in flat and bright. A desk and monitor sit along the side wall, so a bare window throws a hot patch across the room and a reflection onto the screen for part of the day.
A cellular shade covers that glass in one clean panel. The fabric is folded into pleats that form little air pockets, and light passing through gets soft and even instead of harsh. Plenty of homeowners ask us about window treatments in La Jolla because of coastal glare, not heat. In a room like this one, glare is the real problem. The pale fabric also keeps the window from becoming one more dark block on a wall that already has a lot going on.
What does a top down bottom up shade do that a regular shade cannot?
It opens from either end. You can lower the top rail to let sky in while the bottom of the window stays covered, or raise the bottom like a normal shade.
On a wide window that matters a lot. In both of these rooms the useful light is the band of sky at the top of the glass. The view straight out is the part you want covered. Dropping the top rail a third of the way down gives you daylight and privacy together, which a standard shade that only lifts from the bottom cannot do.
Both rails move on their own, and each one stays where you leave it. In practice most people find a setting they like and leave it there for months. Then on a dark winter afternoon they drop the top rail all the way and get every bit of light the window has to give.
We fit each shade inside the window frame. The headrail tucks in under the top of the opening, and the bottom rail meets the sill with only a thin line of light at the sides.
Can cellular shades help with sound in a music room?
A little. The honeycomb fabric softens some of the echo that bounces off bare glass, but it is not soundproofing and we never sell it that way.
This room is a real practice space. The walls are painted deep red, there is an electronic drum kit in the corner, two microphones on stands, a bass guitar hung on the wall and a cymbal mounted above the window. Square acoustic panels line the corners. The owner has clearly already thought hard about how the room sounds.
What the shade adds is a soft surface across the one large hard surface left in the room. Glass reflects sound almost like a mirror reflects light, so covering it helps take a bit of the ring out of the room. The same air pockets that do that also slow heat moving through the window, which is why we point people to our guide on honeycomb shades and energy savings when they ask about comfort. Here the shade is lowered from the top, so the sky stays in view over the drums while the lower glass stays covered.
Should every room in the house get the same cellular shade?
Not always, but it worked here. These two rooms have matching windows, so we used the same style and color in both.
Matching cellular shades make a La Jolla house look tidy from the street, because every upstairs window shows the same color and pleat from outside. Inside, each room still has its own character. The beige office walls and the red music room walls both work with a light neutral fabric.
If one of your rooms needs full dark for sleep or a projector, you can switch that room to a room darkening fabric in the same pleat size. Your shades still look like a set from the street. Our cellular shades come in light filtering and room darkening fabrics, single and double cell, and with cordless or motorized lifts.
If you have a wide window in an office, studio or spare room and you are not sure how to cover it, book a free in-home consultation. We will bring samples and show you how top down bottom up works on your own glass.