Roman Shades

Roman Shades Serving Zionsville, IN

Soft folds where the room is meant to be looked at

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Quick Answer

Answers to the common questions on this service, written the way we'd explain it at your window. If the terminology is unfamiliar, the questions below define it as they go.

  • Service: Roman Shades for Zionsville homeowners
  • Service area: Zionsville, IN and surrounding areas
    • The measure is bookable soon. Fabrication is the fixed cost in time, generally two to five weeks and longer on specialty shapes. If you have a date you're working toward, tell us at the measure and we'll be straight about it.
  • Insured and bonded
  • Serving Zionsville, IN since 2008
Roman Shades Services

Expert Roman Shades for Zionsville Homes

A Roman shade is soft goods on a lift system: fabric that folds up on itself rather than rolling or stacking on slats. That makes it the treatment that reads as part of the room rather than as hardware, which is why it belongs in the rooms of a Zionsville house that are meant to be looked at. Formal dining rooms in Stonegate and Austin Oaks, primary bedrooms, and the front parlors of the Queen Anne houses on the Village residential blocks.

Fold style is the real decision and it changes both the look and the amount of fabric involved. A flat Roman gives a clean face with a crisp fold stack. A relaxed Roman lets the hem curve. A hobbled or looped Roman holds soft folds even when fully lowered, which suits a taller opening and a heavier fabric. London style adds gathered detail at the ends. Each carries different yardage, so fold style moves the price before fabric does.

Two things worth knowing before ordering. Lining does most of the work: an unlined Roman glows attractively and controls almost nothing, while a blackout lined one on an inside mount still leaves light at the sides because the lining can't reach past the opening. And the lift system usually outlives the fabric, so when a Roman comes to the end of its life it's the face fabric and the lining that have aged, not the mechanism.

When to Call

Signs You Need Roman Shades

If you notice any of these in your Zionsville home, it is worth booking a measure. None of it is urgent, and none of it fixes itself either.

The dining room needs softness rather than another hard treatment

A tall narrow opening suits folds better than slats

You want fabric at the window without full drapery

Existing Roman shades have faded along the fold lines

The room is formal and the hardware should disappear

A Queen Anne parlor needs something sympathetic to the casing

Blinds look wrong against original applied trim

You want a little pattern at the window and no more

Our Process

How Zionsville Window Treatments Handles Roman Shades

Every job follows the same six-step process. Transparent, thorough, and done right the first time.

1

Read the room first

A Roman is a decorating decision as much as a functional one, so we start with what the room is for and what's already in it. Fold style, fabric weight and pattern scale all follow from that. In a Village parlor with heavy original casing and tall narrow proportions, a hobbled fold at the right scale sits comfortably. In a wide modern room the same shade can look undersized against the opening.

2

Choose fold and lining

Flat, relaxed, hobbled or London, and then the lining separately. Lining decides light control, drape and how the fabric ages. An interlining adds body and weight and improves both the fold and the thermal behavior. On a west facing opening the lining also protects the face fabric, since the room side and window side faces of any fabric age at different rates.

3

Measure for fabric

Three widths, three heights and a diagonal like everything else, plus the numbers that only matter for soft goods: pattern repeat, whether the fabric can be railroaded, fullness and total yardage. A large repeat on a narrow opening can force a placement decision, and on a bank of openings the repeat has to be planned across all of them so the pattern lines up window to window.

4

Settle the mount and the stack

An inside mount keeps the casing visible, which matters where the casing is the reason you like the room. An outside mount above the opening gives better light control and lets the stack sit clear of the glass when raised. Stack height is a real number on a Roman, and on a shorter opening a hobbled fold can eat a third of the view when fully raised. We show you where the hem lands.

5

Order the room together

Everything in one room comes from a single dye lot, and we say plainly that adding an opening next year may not match. This matters more on Romans than on almost anything else here, because a fabric shade is read as a set and a slight dye variation between two shades on the same wall is visible in a way it isn't on a slat product.

6

Install and dress the folds

Brackets level, shade hung, cords run and locked, then the folds trained. A Roman comes out of the box with factory creases in the wrong places, and it needs to be dressed so the folds fall where the design intends. We do that at install rather than leaving it to settle, because a shade left to find its own folds usually finds the wrong ones.

Real Project Photos

Roman Shades in Zionsville

Photographs from real roman shades jobs completed by our crew in Zionsville and surrounding areas.

Custom shades measured and installed in Zionsville
Scope of Work

What Roman Shades Includes

Every Zionsville job is documented item by item. Here is what the crew covers.

Three widths and three heights taken at every opening, then a diagonal check so the shade hangs level

Mounting depth read at the top of the opening to see whether the stacked folds clear the trim on an inside mount

Stack height calculated from finished height, fold count and lining, then shown to you before anything is ordered

Outside mount height set above the opening wherever the stack would otherwise sit across the glass

Fold style specified room by room: flat, relaxed, hobbled or London

Fold count and fold depth written on the order so the bottom fold doesn't come up short

Lining specified per elevation, light filtering or room darkening or none, and stated in writing

Interlining added where the face fabric needs body or where the room wants weight and quiet

Pattern repeat measured so the motif lands at the same height on every shade in a room

Fabric run direction decided against the width, since a wide shade may need the goods turned

Ring rows and dowel pockets drawn to the fold spacing instead of a factory default

Lift chosen as cordless, a continuous cord loop with a tensioner, or a motor

Cord safety handled to ANSI/WCMA A100.1-2022, with cordless specified anywhere a child can reach

Mounting board wrapped in the face fabric where the board itself will show from the room

Return depth dimensioned on outside mounts so the sides close off against the wall

Brackets fastened into framing or into anchors rated for a lined shade's weight, not into bare drywall

Shades steamed on site so the creases from folding and shipping fall out of the cloth

Folds dressed by hand and the shade cycled a few times so every fold trains and breaks in the same place

Pricing

What Roman Shades Cost in Zionsville

National category figures put stock shades at roughly $60 to $600 per window and custom-fabricated shades at roughly $250 to $2,600 per window. Those are national ranges published for a category, not a price for any address in Zionsville, and Zionsville Window Treatments quotes from a measure rather than an average. Romans usually sit in the upper part of that band, because what you're buying is yardage and sewing rather than cloth wrapped on a tube. Fabric moves the number first and it's sold by the yard, so a large pattern repeat adds cloth before anyone cuts. Lining and interlining come next. Then fold style, since a hobbled shade eats noticeably more fabric than a flat one of the same size. Two Boone County windows of identical size can land far apart on cloth alone.

By Product

How Roman Shades Differ by Product

Every product in this trade behaves differently in a room. Here is what that means for this work.

Flat Roman: One uninterrupted face of fabric when the shade is down, with folds appearing only as it rises. It shows a print or a weave better than any other style, and it's the one we specify in rooms that want a quiet, tailored line.

Relaxed Roman: Built without a dowel in the bottom fold, so the hem carries a soft curve instead of a straight line. It suits a kitchen window over a sink or a casual room, and it forgives a slightly unlevel opening better than a flat shade does.

Hobbled Roman: Permanent cascading folds stay stacked down the whole face whether the shade is up or down. It reads soft and traditional, it uses considerably more yardage, and it stacks much taller when raised. Plan the mount height around that.

London shade: Gathered at two points with soft tails falling at each side, usually hung as a stationary treatment or one that gets raised rarely. It's a decorative shade for a powder room, a stair landing or a window that never needs daily operation.

Dowel and ring construction: Rods sit in sewn pockets across the back and rings carry the lift cord. Pocket spacing sets fold depth, and drawing it against the finished height is how you avoid a runt fold at the bottom of an odd-height window.

Cotton sateen lining: The standard backing. It gives the shade body so folds hold their shape, it slows fading of the face fabric, and it puts the same neutral face toward the street from every window on an elevation.

Interlining: A soft flannel layer between face fabric and lining. It thickens the fold, quiets the room a little, adds real insulating bulk at a cold January window, and it turns a thin decorator fabric into a shade with weight.

Cordless lift: A spring-assisted mechanism raises and lowers the shade by hand with no loop hanging anywhere. It's the default in nurseries and any room a child uses, and on a lined Roman it wants correct spring sizing for the actual fabric weight.

Motorized Roman: A battery or hardwired motor lifts the shade on a remote or a schedule. It earns its keep on a shade above a stair, over a sink or on a tall window, and battery wands need changing about once a year.

Wrapped mounting board: The board the shade staples to, covered in the face fabric so it disappears when the shade is mounted outside the opening. Without it you see raw lumber above the shade from anywhere in the room.

Light Control

See What Each Fabric Does To The Light

Pick a fabric below and the window updates. It's a drawing rather than a photograph, so read it as a rough guide to what each family does in a Zionsville room, and to what it doesn't do.

Fabric type

Sheer, 10 percent openness

Ten percent of the weave is open, so you keep the view and most of the daylight. Glare drops a little. After dark, once your lamps are on, someone outside can read shapes through it, which is why this belongs on a view window rather than a bedroom.

Openness factor is printed on the fabric card, so you can compare one line against another before you order anything.

Keeps the viewNot private after dark

Solar, 5 percent openness

The usual pick for a west window or a covered porch. You can still read the yard through it, glare comes down noticeably, and the fabric intercepts a good share of the sun before it reaches you at four in the afternoon.

It also cuts the UV landing on floors and furniture. NFRC puts UV at roughly 40 to 60 percent of fading damage, so this slows fading rather than stopping it.

View and glare controlSlows fading

Solar, 3 percent openness

A tighter weave. The room goes dimmer and the view drops back to an outline. Choose it where the sun is the problem and the view is second, which around here usually means a west wall in July. That's a common call on this side of Indianapolis.

Openness affects how much you see out, not how private you are. A 3 percent fabric still shows silhouettes at night.

View becomes an outlineStrong glare control

Solar, 1 percent openness

Close to a solid fabric with a little view left in it. This is the strongest glare control in the solar family.

The trade is that it darkens the room on a gray January day too. Indianapolis averages a January high near 36F and the light is flat, so think about how the room reads in both seasons before you commit.

Darkest solar optionDim on gray days

Light filtering

No view through it. Daylight comes through the face diffused, so the room stays bright without a hot spot across the television or the kitchen island. This is the default for living spaces.

It isn't private in reverse at night. With the lamps on and the sun down, silhouettes still show.

No view through itBright without the glare

Room darkening

A denser fabric, usually with a liner behind it. Most of the light coming through the face is gone.

Light still arrives around the edges on an inside mount, so a room darkening shade gives you a dim room rather than a dark one. If someone in the house sleeps during the day, say so at the measure and we'll scope it differently.

Dim, not darkEdges stay bright

Blackout

The fabric itself passes essentially no light. What you'll still see is the perimeter. Lutron publishes an inside-mount light gap of about 3/4 inch per side on its Roller 20 and 64 shades, along with a standard factory deduction of 1/16 inch per side, and shades over 120 inches tall or past a 4:1 height-to-width ratio get larger gaps than that.

So if you need a genuinely dark bedroom, that gap has to be dealt with on purpose, either with side channels or by going outside mount. We tell you which one your opening can carry while we're still standing in the room.

Dark facePerimeter needs a plan

Openness factor is a measured fabric spec, so you can compare it line to line. The category names are not measured. One maker's room darkening can behave like another maker's light filtering, which is why the sample books come to the measure and get opened in the room they're going in, at the hour that room has the problem.

Common Questions

Roman Shades FAQ

Questions we hear most often from Zionsville homeowners considering roman shades.

It follows the opening and the fabric weight. A flat Roman gives the crispest face and suits a patterned fabric where you want the pattern read cleanly. A relaxed Roman with a gentle curve at the hem softens a room and looks less formal. A hobbled or looped Roman keeps soft horizontal folds even at full drop, which suits a tall opening and a heavier fabric and gives the window presence when it's down. London style adds gathering at the ends and reads dressier. In a Village parlor with tall narrow proportions, hobbled usually sits best. In a modern Holliday Farms room, flat usually does.
That's the lining's job, and the mount decides whether the lining gets to do it. A blackout lining blocks the fabric itself very effectively, but on an inside mount light comes around the sides through the gap between the shade and the opening, so the room goes dim rather than dark. An outside mount above the opening with generous overlap on each side does much better. If a bedroom genuinely needs darkness, we'd usually put a blackout roller or cellular shade inside the opening and a Roman outside it, so each product does what it's actually good at.
It can, and it's the room where fabric shades most often disappoint. A 3.9 month muggy season and a shower running twice a day put moisture into a fabric that has nowhere to dry, and the result over a few years is a shade that holds a smell and shows marking along the bottom fold. If the room has good ventilation and a window that isn't right over the tub, a Roman in a synthetic or blended fabric is workable. If not, a composite shutter or a faux wood blind does the job and lasts, and we'd rather point you there.
It has to be planned before the order, not discovered at install. A patterned fabric has a repeat, and on a bank of openings the repeat has to be positioned so the pattern reads consistently from shade to shade. That can mean more yardage than the raw measurements suggest, and on a large repeat it can mean a placement compromise on a narrow opening. We work it out at the measure and show you where the pattern will land on each shade, because a set of Romans where the motif sits at a different height on each one is the kind of thing you can't stop seeing.
Yes, and Romans show it more than most products because the fabric folds. Ultraviolet accounts for roughly 40 to 60 percent of fading damage, so a shade on a west or south opening ages faster than one on a north opening in the same room. What's specific to a folded shade is that the exposed fold faces age ahead of the fabric hidden inside the folds, so a Roman that's been down all summer and is then raised can show banding. A lining slows it, moving the shade through its range occasionally helps, and neither prevents it.
Better than a slat product, which is one of the reasons they suit the Village. A fabric shade has no hard horizontal line to betray a crooked opening, so a small deviation reads as nothing at all. Beyond a certain point it still matters, since the shade hangs plumb while the opening doesn't and the gap at one side grows down the drop. We three point measure and run the diagonal like everything else, and where the deviation is real we mount outside on the casing so the shade sets its own geometry.
They can be specified safely and the specification is the whole thing. Traditional Roman shades used rear lift cords, which is exactly the arrangement modern product safety standards address. Current product built to ANSI/WCMA A100.1-2022 uses cordless lift systems and enclosed cord routing, and inner cord non compliance is a substantial product hazard under 16 CFR 1120.3. What we specify for a child's room is cordless, with no accessible cord at the back of the shade. If you have older Roman shades with exposed rear cords still hanging, they're worth dealing with regardless of who supplied them.
More, and the difference is in fabrication rather than fabric. A roller shade is one panel on a tube. A Roman is a fabricated soft good with lining, sometimes interlining, fold structure, a hem weight and a lift system, and the fold style itself changes the yardage. Custom shades run roughly $250 to $2,600 per window nationally, and Romans sit in the upper part of that band with pattern repeat and lining choice moving the number more than the face fabric's name does. The lift system usually outlasts the fabric, which is worth remembering at replacement time.
More than most people picture, and this is the part nobody asks about until it's hanging. A raised Roman gathers into a stack of folded cloth at the top, and that stack has real depth. A lined shade on a tall window can take up a foot or more of height when it's all the way up. On an inside mount, that stack sits over the top of the glass all day. The fix is knowing the number before you order, which is why we calculate it at the measure and show it to you.
Start with the room rather than the catalog. A flat Roman is the cleanest and shows a pattern best, so it goes in rooms that want a tailored line. A relaxed shade has a soft curve in the hem and reads casual, which suits kitchens and cottage-style rooms. Hobbled keeps its folds all the way down and looks traditional, but it uses more cloth and stacks taller. A London shade is decorative and mostly stationary. We bring samples of the same fabric made three ways so you can see it rather than imagine it.
Inside looks cleaner and shows off your trim, but it needs depth, and the stack still lands over your glass when the shade is up. Outside mount is what we reach for when the view matters, because the board can go well above the opening and the whole stack sits on wall instead of window. Outside also closes off the light gaps at the sides. In a Zionsville room with a view worth keeping, outside mount is usually the right call even though it covers a little trim.
A room darkening or blackout lining stops light coming through the cloth, and that's genuinely most of the light. What it can't do is stop light coming around the shade. An inside-mounted Roman leaves a gap at each side, and light walks straight through it. For a bedroom that has to be dark, you want an outside mount with generous overlap, or a blackout roller with side channels underneath and the Roman on top for looks. We'd rather say that now than after you've paid for lining.
Yes, and in most houses you should. Cordless lift uses a spring mechanism you operate by grabbing the hembar, and motorized removes the question entirely. ANSI/WCMA A100.1-2022 is the product safety standard this trade works to, and inner cords that aren't compliant are treated as a substantial product hazard under 16 CFR 1120.3. On a heavy lined shade the spring has to be sized to the actual fabric weight, so tell us about the lining before the order goes in, not after.
Wider than you'd think and narrower than you'd like. Fabric shades get heavy fast, and past a certain width the cloth starts to sag between the rings and the lift gets hard to work. On a wide opening we'll usually split it into two shades on one board, matched at the pattern so they read as a pair. That also keeps each shade at a weight a person can raise without a fight. The exact limit depends on the fabric and the lining, which is why we decide it at the window.
Because you're buying cloth by the yard and then paying someone to sew it. A shade that takes four yards of a mid-priced fabric and a shade that takes seven yards of an imported weave aren't in the same conversation, and the second one hasn't even reached the sewing table yet. Pattern repeat adds yardage on top, since motifs have to land at the same height across a room. Fold style adds more. We figure yardage during the quote so the number isn't a surprise on the order.
They will if the shade was built and dressed properly. Fold spacing is set by the dowel pockets and ring rows, so it's baked into the construction rather than something that drifts. What does go wrong is a shade that was never trained: it arrives folded flat from the factory, gets hung, and the shipping creases live in the wrong places forever. We steam on site, then dress each fold by hand and cycle the shade so the cloth learns where it bends.
In a kitchen, yes, with sense about placement. Fabric near a cooktop takes on grease and cooking smells, so we keep Romans on the window over the sink and off the window beside the range. In a full bathroom with a shower running daily, fabric holds damp and the folds can hold it longer. A poly shutter or a moisture-tolerant shade does better in that room. A powder room with no shower is fine, and a London shade there looks terrific.
Vacuum the face with a brush attachment a few times a year, working down the folds rather than across them. Steam wrinkles out instead of pressing them. For anything worse, use a cleaner who handles fabric window treatments specifically and will take the shade down and rehang it. Do not put a lined Roman in a washing machine. Face fabric, lining and interlining shrink at different rates, and the shade comes out with a wavy hem that nothing fixes.
A roller is the working answer: it rolls onto a tube, takes almost no height when it's up, and handles glare and privacy cheaply. A Roman is the design answer, because folded cloth softens a room in a way a flat panel of fabric on a tube never does. Rollers win on tall windows where stack height would eat the view and in rooms where you raise and lower every day. Plenty of houses use both, with rollers on the working windows and Romans where the room is meant to feel finished.
Sometimes, and plan as if you can't. Decorator fabric runs in dye lots, and a bolt woven a year from now can sit slightly off the one your shades came from. On the same wall in daylight, that difference shows. If you know a second phase is coming, buy the yardage now even if the sewing waits. Either way we record the fabric name, the lot and the finished sizes on your file, which gives a reorder a real chance instead of a hope.
It's a soft flannel layer sewn between the face fabric and the lining, and it does three things at once that are hard to get any other way. It gives the fold depth and a rounded edge instead of a sharp crease. It quiets a hard-surfaced room. And it puts real bulk between the room and a cold window in January, which you feel standing near the glass. It also adds weight, so the lift and the brackets get sized for it.
Yes, and it's a common way to finish a room. The Roman does the working part, handling glare and privacy at the glass, while the panels add height and softness at the sides. Two things to check at the measure: the drapery rod needs enough projection to clear the raised stack of the Roman, and the shade's mounting board has to sit where the rod brackets won't fight it. Get the order wrong and the panels rub the shade every time they move.
Areas We Serve

Roman Shades Across Zionsville

We measure and install in every one of these Zionsville neighborhoods. Each has its own page with the build eras, window conditions and mounting notes for that section.

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Office
1417 Commerce Avenue, Indianapolis, IN 46201
Hours
Mon-Fri 8a-6p
Service Area
Zionsville, IN and Surrounding Areas

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