A newly built home in El Cajon, ready for window treatments. We fitted roller shades in every room, set inside the deep window openings.
What roller shades work best for a whole home in El Cajon?
Simple, consistent roller shades in one fabric across the house. In this new El Cajon home, every window got the same gray roller shade, which keeps the look calm from room to room.
The house sits on a graded lot with a dry hillside behind it, a block wall at the top and a metal stair rail running down the slope. That view gets direct sun much of the day. A bare window facing it in July is a lot of glare and a lot of heat.
Roller shades handle that well. Pull them down in the afternoon and the fabric stops much of the sun before it reaches the floor. Roll them up in the morning and the whole window is clear. One fabric for the whole house also makes life easier later, since any replacement matches the rest.
El Cajon sits inland, and summers here are hotter than on the coast. Our post on the best window treatments for the San Diego climate explains why fabric choice matters more the further you get from the beach.
Should roller shades be inside mount in deep window openings?
Usually, yes. When the openings are deep, as they are in this house, an inside mount tucks the shade into the opening and leaves the wall clean.
These windows have smooth drywall returns with no trim, so there is plenty of depth to hide the shade. Each one has a slim cassette across the top of the opening. When the shade is up, the cassette is all you see.
The trade off shows in the closed photo. An inside mount needs a small gap at each side so the fabric can roll without rubbing the wall, and light comes through that gap. You can see thin bright lines at the edges of each shade. For living spaces that is normal and most people stop noticing it. For a bedroom where dark matters most, an outside mount that overlaps the opening, or side channels, closes those gaps.
We measure each opening in three places, top, middle and bottom, before we order. New construction is not always square, and a shade built to the widest point will rub where the opening pinches in.
How do you put a roller shade on a high bathroom window?
Inside mount, with a fabric that gives full privacy, and a way to reach it. This bathroom window sits high on the wall above the tub tile, out of easy reach.
Privacy comes first in a bathroom. The fabric here is a solid weave, so with the shade down nobody outside sees in, even with the lights on at night. It still passes a soft glow during the day, which keeps the room from feeling closed in.
Reach is the second problem. Leaning over a tub to grab a chain is awkward and a little risky. In the photo, a telescoping pole stands next to the tub for reaching the shade. Another fix for windows like this is a motor, so the shade runs from a remote or a wall switch. Our motorized shades work well on any window you cannot reach easily.
Moisture matters too. Bathroom shades get steam every day, so we pick a fabric that resists mildew and wipes clean, and a cassette that keeps the roll covered.
What happens on install day for a whole home of roller shades?
We go room by room. Each shade is labeled for its window, so the crew mounts brackets, clicks in the shade and tests it before moving to the next.
The install photo shows this house before the floors were finished, with an installer on a ladder setting a cassette at the top of a bedroom window. Getting in during that stage is common on new builds. The walls are done, the windows are in, and nothing heavy is in the way yet.
Each shade gets tested at the window. We run it all the way down and back up, check that it hangs straight and that the hem bar sits level with the sill. If anything rubs or drifts, we adjust it before we leave. You should not have to call us back to fix a shade that was never right.
Moving into a new home in El Cajon or nearby? Book a free in-home consultation and we will measure every window, bring samples and plan the whole house at once.