A rectangular skylight set at the top of a deep, flared light well. One fitted shade turns harsh roof light into a soft, warm glow.
Can you put a shade on a skylight in a vaulted ceiling?
Yes. A skylight shade mounts right up at the glass, inside the light well, and runs in side rails so it stays flat even though it is overhead. This Carlsbad home has exactly that setup.
The skylight sits at the top of a deep shaft. The drywall sides flare out toward the room, which spreads the light nicely but also means the glass is a long way up. In a vaulted or high ceiling that is normal. It is also why skylights so often end up bare. A regular window shade cannot hang from a sloped or horizontal opening, because gravity pulls it away from the glass.
A skylight shade solves that with tension. The fabric is held between rails on the sides of the frame, so it can stop anywhere and stay put, even upside down. Here the shade fills the opening edge to edge with only a thin line at the bottom rail. From the floor it looks like part of the skylight, not something added later. That is the goal with any shade you will be looking up at every day, and it is how we approach window treatments in Carlsbad homes with high ceilings.
How does a skylight shade change the light in a room?
It turns a hard beam into an even glow. Instead of a bright rectangle sliding across the floor through the day, the whole light well lights up softly.
The photo was taken as the sun was getting low, and you can see the result. The fabric picks up the warm evening color and passes it down the shaft, so the angled walls of the well glow a soft gold. The room below stays dim and calm. There is no hot spot, and nothing to squint at. Without a shade, that same skylight would throw a bright patch on the floor at midday, and on a summer afternoon it would feel like a heat lamp aimed at one spot.
The fabric is a pale, textured weave that filters light instead of blocking it. That is the right choice for most skylights. People add skylights to bring daylight in, and a blackout fabric would undo that. A light filtering fabric keeps the skylight useful and takes the edge off. In a bedroom or media room we would talk about a room darkening option instead.
Do cellular skylight shades help with heat in Carlsbad?
They help a lot. A skylight is a hole in the roof, and the roof is the hottest surface on the house, so covering it with an insulating fabric cuts heat where it starts.
Carlsbad has a mild coastal climate, but a skylight does not care much about mild. The sun hits it nearly straight on at midday, and that heat drops right into the room below. Cellular shades are the usual choice for skylights because the honeycomb cells trap a layer of air between the fabric and the glass. That air slows heat coming in during summer. In winter it slows heat going out through the roof at night.
We wrote about how much difference that layer makes in our post on honeycomb shades and energy savings. The short version: bare skylight glass lets a lot of heat through, and a fitted shade is a simple fix. It also protects floors and furniture under the skylight from fading, since the sun hits the same spot every day.
How do you open and close a skylight shade you cannot reach?
With a pole or a motor. A telescoping pole hooks onto the bottom rail and slides the shade open or closed from the floor. A motor does the same thing from a remote, a wall switch or a phone.
Which one makes sense comes down to how often you will move it. A skylight you close once in summer and open again in fall is fine with a pole that lives in a closet. A skylight over a living space that gets sun every afternoon is a better fit for a motor, because nobody wants to dig out a pole twice a day. On a deep light well like this one, a pole also has to be long enough to clear the shaft, which is worth checking before you decide. Our motorized shades can run on a schedule, so the skylight closes on its own before the hottest part of the day.
Measuring a skylight is fussier than measuring a window. The frame has to be square enough for the rails, and the shade has to clear any hardware on the skylight itself. If you have a skylight that heats up the room or glares in the evening, book a free in-home consultation and we will measure it and bring fabric samples you can hold up to the light.