I have read a lot of guides to blind types over the years and most of them are the same paragraph fifteen times over with the nouns swapped out. So I have arranged this one differently, by the job each blind actually does, because that is how anybody sensible makes the decision. Some of these you can buy in any high street shop and that is completely fine, I will say so. A few of them solve problems that only a specialist will touch, and knowing which is which before you start saves you a lot of ringing round. We happen to be that specialist for two or three of the categories further down, and I will tell you when we get there rather than pretending to be neutral about it.
Rollers, where I would start if the window is unremarkable
There is nothing complicated going on in a roller and that is the whole appeal of it. One width of fabric wrapped round a tube, up it goes, down it comes. For an ordinary square window it is the cheapest honest answer on the market and I would never talk anybody out of one where it fits properly. Ask for the blackout lining if it is going in a bedroom. What a roller cannot do, and no amount of clever fitting on the day will change this, is cover a shaped window, so please do not let anybody persuade you otherwise on that.
Romans, which are really about how the room looks
A Roman gathers up into soft horizontal folds as you lift it and hangs as one flat panel of fabric when it is down, which is exactly why decorators are so fond of them. You choose a Roman when the window is part of the look of the room, so sitting rooms and formal dining rooms mostly. The catch is bulk, and it catches people out. On a tall window those stacked folds eat a surprising amount of your view even with the blind fully raised, so in practice Romans suit shorter, wider windows far better than they suit full height glass.
Venetians, for when you want to aim the light somewhere
Tilting slats, either aluminium or timber. The thing a Venetian does that almost nothing else manages is aim the light, you tip the slats and the daylight bounces up onto the ceiling while the view in from the street stays blocked off. That makes them very good indeed in kitchens and home offices. Whether they belong in a smart sitting room is more a question of taste, and personally I find the slatted look a little utilitarian for that setting, though plenty of people I respect disagree with me on it.
Verticals, which never really left the office and I understand why
Hanging strips on a top track, they rotate for light control and draw right aside when you want to get past. Verticals fell out of fashion in houses a long time ago and never left commercial buildings, and there is a good reason for that, nothing else clears a four metre run of glazing with a door sitting in the middle of it half so cleanly. If you are fitting them at that sort of width, motorise them, otherwise somebody in the office ends up standing there twisting a wand every single morning and quietly cursing whoever specified the things.
Honeycombs, the one entry I would ask you to remember
If you take only one thing away from this list, I would make it this one. The fabric gets folded into sealed cells and each cell holds a pocket of still air against the glass. That trapped air is real, measurable insulation, not a marketing line. Double and triple cell versions hold more of it again. Our own range for standard windows, the honeycomb cellular blinds, is built entirely round that idea, motorised on quiet Somfy motors and talking to Alexa, Google Home, Control4, KNX and Crestron. If the room is cold, this is where I would start and, honestly, where I would finish as well.
Pleated blinds, the honeycomb’s lighter cousin
Think of a pleated as the honeycomb’s cousin who did not quite commit. Same concertina look from across the room, but it is a single layer of fabric with no air cell in it, so it folds away to almost nothing and costs noticeably less. What you are giving up is the insulation, and I mean all of it. That trade makes complete sense on a conservatory side window or a small landing, where a compact stack matters far more than warmth ever will.
Shaped and apex blinds, where the high street runs out of road
Here is the point at which the high street runs out of road. A triangle, an apex, a gable end, a circle, none of them will take a standard blind without leaving a wedge of bare glass along the angle, and that wedge sits exactly where the low sun pours through, which was the one place you actually wanted covering. The people who ring us about these windows have usually been told no by three or four companies already, we hear it most weeks.
A proper shaped blind gets made to the measured angles of the one specific window it is destined for, and it holds the fabric tight against the sloped edge for the whole of its travel. That edge mechanism, the light gap control, is the part we hold the patent on with our SonaApex shaped blinds, and it is the part the cheaper shaped products get wrong, they cover the middle perfectly well and then leak light right at the point. If a window has a point on it, this is the only category that genuinely works. I do appreciate that reads like a sales line coming from us, but the customers who tried everything else first are our main source of new business, so make of that what you will.
Skylight and rooflight blinds, because gravity stops helping you
Lay glass back towards the horizontal and gravity, which quietly holds every wall blind flat for you, stops helping. A blind that behaves impeccably on a wall will sag, slip off sideways and pool in a corner on a skylight inside a season. We have been called out to enough failed ones that I could describe the pattern with my eyes shut. The fix is a tensioned track running down either side that pins the fabric flat at any pitch, and that is how our SonaSky electric skylight blinds deal with roof lanterns, flat rooflights and steep loft skylights alike, all of it on the same Somfy system as the rest of the range. Overhead glass is a specialist job. Treat it as one and it stays tidy for years.
Blackout, which is not really a type at all
Strictly speaking this one is a specification rather than a type of blind, and I include it because people search for it as though it were a product. Blackout is a lining you add to a roller, a honeycomb, a shaped blind. So the question is never which blackout blind should I buy, it is which blind do I need, lined for blackout. Nurseries, cinema rooms, anybody working night shifts. And do check the edges once it is fitted, because a blind with a bright strip of daylight running down each side is not blackout whatever the label promised you.
Day and night, or zebra, for the rooms that just want dimming
Two layers of striped fabric, sheer bands sitting over solid bands, and you slide them in and out of alignment to go from open view to private. It is a clever mechanism and genuinely useful in a room that wants daylight all day and then privacy at dusk without ever needing to go properly dark. It will not black a room out though, it physically cannot, so keep it for the rooms where a soft dimming is all anybody wanted.
Solar shades, for glare when you still want the view
An open weave fabric that knocks back glare and heat while letting you hang onto the view out. They are graded by openness factor, usually somewhere between three and ten per cent, and the lower that number the more it blocks and the less you see through it. The natural home for these is the bright south facing office where a solid fabric would have you working in the dark at midday with the lights on, which always struck me as a strange way to live.
Motorisation, which is an option rather than a type
Nearly everything on this list can be motorised, so treat this as something you add rather than something you choose between. What you are actually buying is reach and control. The motor hides away inside the top rail and the blind joins the lights and the heating on scenes and timers. Three situations justify it instantly to my mind, the window that is too high to reach at all, the row of blinds you want moving together as one, and any house already running on automation, where a manual blind starts to feel like the odd one out.
Door blinds, where one measurement decides everything
The door has to carry on opening. That single fact does most of the deciding for you before you have looked at a single fabric sample. Your options are a blind on each door panel, folding back along with it, or one blind that draws fully clear to one side of the opening. Which of those survives depends on one number, the depth of clear recess left once the doors are stacked back. Ten minutes with a tape measure, before anybody opens the fabric books, and the decision more or less makes itself.
Perfect fit, for one specific frame and no others
A frameless cassette that clips into the window bead with no drilling at all, so the blind and the opening window move together as a single piece. That is the tidy answer for tilt and turn uPVC windows, where an ordinary blind would foul the opening every single time you used it. They take pleated or cellular fabrics. It is a solution to one very specific frame type, and for that frame type it is a good one.
Wood and faux wood, which is a Venetian with warmth
Essentially a Venetian with some warmth to it. Real timber slats suit a study, or a bedroom that wants the natural look. Anywhere with moisture in the air gets the faux version, kitchens and bathrooms every time, because damp will warp real timber and there is no arguing with it once it has gone. Both are heavier than aluminium, which is worth remembering on a wide window.
So which of the fifteen do you actually want
A quick way back through the whole lot. Square and unremarkable, a roller or a Roman, or a honeycomb if warmth is the point. A point or an angle anywhere on the window, SonaApex, and I would not waste an afternoon on anything else. Glass overhead, SonaSky. A door, a per panel or side stacking blind, or shade outside the glass entirely. High or awkward to reach, motorise whatever you end up fitting. Total darkness, a blackout lined honeycomb. Glare but keep the view, a solar shade.
The honest truth is that most homes are not one type of window, they are five at once, and the real win is getting all of them onto a single system rather than a drawer full of remotes that nobody can tell apart. That is the whole point of building SonaApex, SonaSky and SonaCell on the same motorised platform. For help with a particular project, or to see a sample, contact the team at contact@sonashades.com.
