There aren’t many blogs out there talking about Roman shades, so I find myself getting a lot of comments and e-mails asking me for personal advice about what kinds of Roman shade I use in my own home. I have a mid-sized home, so my recommendations may not work for all of you, but I’ll give this topic a whirl today anyway. Now, be warned that custom Roman shades design really takes an individual eye — for example, my house doesn’t really have any sort of Eastern motif to it, so I don’t use bamboo Roman shades at all, even though I think they’re a very valuable addition to a whole lot of potential styles. I tend to stick mostly with fabric Roman shades, although I did make some custom Roman shades with special gold thread that you can’t find in stores anywhere.

Let’s start with the main floor:

In the dining room I use normal, light fabric Roman shades

Fabric Roman shades in my dining room

My house is a modest sized one, and I tend to go for a general antique sort of design. You can see with the wooden chairs and the chandelier in this photo what kind of style I’m going for — I don’t want it to look like a house full of octogenarians, but I also don’t want it to look like a modern newlyweds abode. To fit the look I’m going for, I opted for some fabric Roman shades in the dining room. I picked a rather neutral color, but you can see that it matches the tablecloth quite well, and its light tone is accented by the hanging crystals on the chandelier. I could have also gone with a darker color to match the wood instead, but I opted for a more light touch — I didn’t want to drag down the mood in the room that sees the most socialization of all (I host a lot of dinner parties). So, for this case, a nice light fabric Roman shade worked very well.

In the kitchen, similar to the dining room, I went with green fabric Roman shades

Green fabric Roman shades in the kitchen

As you can see, I went for a similar look in my kitchen. Heavier wood Roman shades wouldn’t be as appropriate here either, because I don’t have any wood cabinets flanking my main kitchen window. Because of the marble counter top and the white paint we decided to use in the kitchen, anything with a wood tone in the Roman shades would clash hard with the rest of the room. Therefore, we went with fabric Roman shades again. The green color on these Roman shades matches the paint of the wall perfectly, and the specks and lines of whiter color throughout help them match very well to the white paint below. All in all, these green fabric Roman shades tie my kitchen together in a way that normal mini blinds can’t.

Finally, in the bedroom, I have more translucent yellow fabric Roman shades

My translucent bedroom fabric Roman shades

I want you to notice one big, important thing about these fabric Roman shades. What is it? They’re TRANSLUCENT. They let the light in. This is very important for me, because I love to wake up naturally in the mornings. I don’t rely on an alarm clock — I need natural sunlight. These Roman shades are made to let the light through, and that’s why I chose to use them in the bedroom. They’re a natural yellow color, and the fabric on these fabric Roman shades is clear enough to let a nice natural glow from the sun in the morning. I wouldn’t decorate my room with any other type of Roman shades, especially not one that blocks out the sun — but these do the trick perfectly.

Now that you’ve seen how I use Roman shades, particularly fabric Roman shades, in my house, maybe you’ll have some ideas for how to use them yourself. Remember that the important thing is to MATCH them to what’s around them in the room — you need your Roman shades to match their surroundings, or else they’ll clash with everything. The number 2 consideration is to make sure that they allow as much or as little light as you need. After that, it’s all style — whether you need fabric Roman shades, bamboo Roman shades, wood Roman shades, or custom Roman shades, you have to make a choice about what YOU think will look best in YOUR home!

It used to be that if you were looking for Roman shades, or any other type of blinds, you would need to go to a good old brick and mortar store to buy them. We simply didn’t have the internet back in the day, so if you needed to decorate your home with fabric Roman shades or bamboo Roman shades you would need to look at them in person, hem and haw about what kind of color and style you want, and then make a final decision. The worst thing was that you’d be limited to whatever poor stock the store had at the time — you didn’t have the hundreds and thousands of roman blinds available to you that you would online. For that reason, buying Roman shades online is typically a smart way to shop. 

Whether it’s bamboo Roman shades or fabric Roman shades, online has the variety for you

Years ago, before the wonderful age of Amazon (where you can buy Roman Shades quite easily and cheaply), you probably wouldn’t even be able to find the custom Roman shades style that you’re looking for! Fabric would normally be your only option; bamboo wasn’t super fashionable yet, so if you wanted bamboo Roman shades you had to get them special ordered from a catalog (entirely unseen, at that!). All they had available was fabric Roman shades, and even those had low variety, with only a couple styles or colors ready for purchase. Now that the internet is here, we can find whatever styles, colors, and materials we want all without leaving our house! The best thing about buying Roman shades on the internet is that you can customize the size, see customer pictures, and buy your hanging appliances and everything all at once. You don’t need to mess around with going to multiple stores or worrying how it’s going to look. Amazon in particular has a very good return policy, so even if you decide that you don’t actually like the way the Roman blinds look, you can always send them back and get your money returned!

If you’re still not sure what kind of Roman shades will fit best in your home, check out our related articles on Bamboo Roman Shades and Fabric Roman Shades for home window decorating tips and tricks!

Normally we don’t post reviews to specific products. We’re more of a general window decoration blog, we want to focus on design tips, decor, how to craft the perfect ambiance for guests… that sort of thing. But occasionally something comes along that’s such a cool little piece that we have no choice but to pass along the recommendation — and these are particularly cheap Roman shades, so we feel okay recommending that you take a look at them. They cost what they should, based on the material. What we’re talking about here is bamboo Roman shades, in a color accurately described as “Coca Tahiti.”

They’re much nicer than any fabric Roman shades we’ve ever seen

Click the shades above for more pictures and the price!

What we love most about these bamboo Roman shades is that they come in the proper coloring for something made of bamboo. Bamboo is really a dark wood at its heart, and when you see something touted as bamboo that’s as white as balsa… well, it’s not a very good look. This set of bamboo Roman shades, though, have a very sharp, modern look to them. They’re nice and dark, which means they go well in any room with darker furniture or natural wood colorings. That’s the classy sort of modern look you want to go for. Another thing we love about them is that they don’t have an overtly “Eastern” feel to them. There’s nothing wrong with an East-Asian theme to your room, but when one is looking for something markedly different, they don’t need one jarring piece of the puzzle clashing with everything else. These bamboo Roman shades can easily be used for a room with OR without a predominantly ‘Asian’ feel to it, and it will fit in either way.

Click above to open a new window with the current price on these awesome Roman shades!

All in all, we highly recommend this set of bamboo Roman shades. It’s a really great shade that would look at home in almost ANY home, and it has a variety of nice colors that can be used to match to a ton of different styles no matter what your room looks like. If you want to take a further look at these Roman shades over at Amazon, click HERE: Lewis Hyman 0296448 Cocoa Tahiti Bamboo Roman Shade. 48″ W x 64″ L

If you liked our first recommendation ever, be sure to check out our previous articles about bamboo Roman shades, custom Roman shades, and even fabric Roman shades (although we didn’t discuss these kinds today)

We’ve talked previously in this blog about bamboo Roman shades and how they can provide a very alluring Eastern sort of flair to any room. Today we’re going to follow in the trend we set out on a few days ago in examining some real world examples of Roman shades in action. As we’ve covered fabric Roman shades and custom Roman shades already, today we’re going to move on to bamboo Roman shades (which are my personal favorites!)

Our first bamboo Roman shades have a lighter tone than most

These bamboo Roman shades are actually lighter than most we’ve seen out there. A lot of the wooden blinds you find will typically have a darker deep wood coloring to them. I think this is because most Eastern design (at least, the Western conception of Easter design, which is a great irony) tends to favor darker woods, sometimes even black in appearance. These bamboo roman shades, however, deviate from the trend, with some panels almost appearing white. While unusual in coloring, these blinds are very good for some specific types of rooms. Rooms dominated by very bright lighting, white or cream colored walls (as in the picture above) will do very well with this example.

Our second example of bamboo Roman shades utilizes a three-folded design

We love these bamboo roman shades, because they have a very fancy extra folded design. Look at how the perpetual folding adds extra shadows to the wood — this adds depth and flavor to your window decor, because it’s more dynamic and varied as compared to a completely flat piece of cloth, or uniform mini-blinds. As with the first example above, this piece of window dressing has lighter wooden tone throughout it as well. However, unlike the example above, the baseline for these panels is much more tan — you won’t find any wood that looks white here. Additionally, there are more specks of black and darker wood sprinkled throughout, which balances out the total impact of the blinds to be darker overall. This kind of bamboo Roman shade would fit in any modern Eastern design.

Last but not least, the traditional and powerful dark bamboo Roman shades

These bamboo Roman shades are more traditional as opposed to the ones above. As I said before, most modern Western-Eastern decoration styles incorporate a lot of black wood, dark red shades, and heavy shading in their rooms. In a room dominated by darker shades, I find a modern dark-wood bamboo Roman shade fits well with the rest of the room. It will do a better job blocking out light, as well, because the sun will be less prone to reflect off the individual slats in the blinds and on into your room. These bamboo Roman shades are probably what I would recommend most for a room with darker paint on the walls and a darker ambiance to the room as a whole.

We’ve already discussed in earlier blog entries why roman shades are an excellent addition to your house. Whether you choose fabric roman shades, bamboo roman shades, or some entirely new and different material, you’re going to have a better looking room than if you’d settled for the standard plastic mini-blinds — or even worse, those hanging hotel blinds that look bad AND fail to block out the light. So, since we’ve already covered why you should go for roman shades over the alternative, today we’re going to be a little more specific for those of you with either a little more money or a little more time to devote to decorating. The answer you’re looking for for the best possible room is laid out in three simple words: Custom Roman Shades.

Custom Roman shades can be tailored to the room they’re going to decorate

I’d wager that the rooms in your house are already decorated. That is, unless you’re moving into your home or apartment for the very first time, you have an established theme and decor in each room (and throughout your house as a whole). Your furniture is already there, your rugs and carpets aren’t changing any time soon, and the sun’s not going to change its path — your lighting stays the same too. In that case, picking out some Roman shades can be a difficult task, because you’re forced to use limited options to match them to the rest of the room. If you have a particularly esoteric or unique design (and this is, of course, what we all actually AIM for when we’re decorating our homes) this can be a difficult process! Custom Roman shades can help make it a bit easier on you. Custom Roman shades can be produced using the fabrics of your choice, with the patterns of your choice, the folds of your choice, and any other customization you want in order to make it fit your room.

Some quick ideas for custom Roman shades

Let’s say you have a room with a lot of antique furniture involving glass. A big cabinet with a glass front, or a splendid coffee table with an ornate glass top. If your room is dominated by glass, why not make custom Roman shades with some hanging clear crystals or beads along the sides, or as tassels hanging off the bottom? Using beadwork and other attachments can fit your custom Roman shades to the room in a seamless fashion. What if you have a room dominated by old, darker wood furniture, but no glass? Maybe opt for a custom bamboo roman shades setup instead in order to tie the windows to the furniture. Do you have a lot of gold or silver or pewter or bronze in the room? Maybe on wall hangings, or knick-knacks, or even a weird set of furniture with gold accents? Have your custom Roman shades woven with some gold thread along the edges for a similar highlight. When you take the wheel, your custom Roman shades can be perfectly tweaked to match your decor — something you just can’t get with pre-made generic styles of Roman shades.

Custom Roman shades not for you? Check out my related posts on fabric Roman shades and bamboo Roman shades. If you don’t have the resources to go full-out custom Roman shades for your home, these might be some good alternatives!

In today’s blog Roman Shades blog post we’re going to show you a couple examples of really good customization that creative homeowners have implemented in order to bring out some special features in their home. Remember that window dressing is one of the most important things to dominate a room’s design, especially if you go with a bold option like the Roman Shades. This kind of decorating can be scary and intimidating to an ambitious young decorator with everything to prove, but believe me – fortune favors the bold when it comes to exciting decorations! Now let’s dive right into these cool decorating examples!

#1: Bold Yellow Fabric Roman Shades

These yellow Roman Shades are an impressive piece of design! A sharp yellow color like that is a shocking move for any decorator, because it’s impossible to ignore — no matter what, your guests’ eyes are going to be drawn to this shade. But sometimes, an exciting bright color is exactly what you need to craft the look you’re going for. On this window, the yellow fabric Roman Shades do a great job of really bringing home the modern look that the homeowner’s looking for. Notice how the room is made up of bright colors beyond just the roman shades itself — the sharp white walls, the bright blue hue of the sheets, and the neat green pastel that lines the window itself. The yellow Roman Shade matches the rest of the room in tone, and it does an especially good job tying in with the sheets — notice the yellow lines running through them — and the yellow clock on the dresser. I’d say this is definitely a good use of fabric Roman Shades to really tie a room’s motif together.

#2: Bamboo Roman Shades

These Bamboo Roman Shades are another great use of the customization available when it comes to window dressing. This designer has done a particularly good job tying the window decoration in with the rest of the room around it. First off, the bamboo roman shades are, of course, a darker shade of wood. This goes excellently with the paint shading on the walls of this room — the lighter tan color is complemented well by the bamboo roman shades’ darker tone. Additionally, they’ve matched other good decorations in the room to both the paint AND the bamboo roman shades. The decoration on the wall hanging to the right of the shades matches the shades themselves, and the doodads to the left match both the bamboo roman shades AND the wall paint through a perfect gradient of color from light to dark tan. This is a really good usage of roman shades to bring out the personality in the room. In this case, I get a sort of East Asian feel, and I think it’s exactly what the decorator was looking for.

#3. Paneled Fabric Roman Shades

This example of paneled colors in fabric Roman Shades shows that when it comes to Roman Shades, you don’t just need to look at solid colors and lame pre-designed patterns. The inventive use of paneling on these shades makes an excellent complement to the rest of the room that a solid color roman shade could not. With a paint shade so light on the walls, you want to avoid a heavy dark shade because it will be an eyesore in the middle of the room — a blotch of dark in the middle of the light is distracting at best, and room-destroying at worst. On the other hand, a light colored roman shade would blend right in with the wall — blend in too perfectly, that is, and avoid notice altogether. By staggering the colors and mixing it up between light and dark, these Fabric Roman Shades achieve a desired balance that melds with the room around it perfectly.

There you have it! Be sure to check out my other recent articles about why you should decorate with Roman Shades, bamboo roman shades in particular, and the comparative benefits of both roman shades and mini-blinds

Fabric Roman shades are an excellent (and I’d even say ideal) choice for the classic-modern look when it comes to the current style in décor. When it comes to window dressing, you have a near infinite amount of options – even if you’ve already picked the Roman style, you have to choose between fabric roman shades, bamboo roman shades, and even some more freaky styles involving metal, beads, and what have you. While any kind of style is appropriate depending on the room, I’ve always been a fan of the modern but not TOO modern look. Let’s break this down into its component parts.

Fabric Roman shades stay classical because of their fabric nature

When you think of a classic room décor, you think drapes and shades. A classic, elegant home isn’t going to have tacky plastic mini-blinds on the windows. Nor will it have hanging shades like a cheap motel. No, a real, beautiful classic house is covered in cloth from top to bottom. Fabric Roman shades fit perfectly in this school of thought, because of their fabric nature. Just think – if your house has a lot of leather furniture, wooden furniture, wood cabinets, and other “natural” style decoration, what’s more natural than fabric? Fabric Roman shades come from the Earth itself, because they’re spun from a crop that grows. Plastic, or imitation materials? That just doesn’t belong alongside leather and wood.

Within the realm of fabric Roman shades, you of course have a ridiculous level of customization available for your perusal. Now, your next step depends on if you’re going to be making the roman shades yourself or buying them new. When you buy, of course, you have a more limited set of options. There are a LOT of different styles, and you can switch up the colors and patterns and fold styles based on what’s available. But that’s just the problem – sometimes what you want ISN’T available. If you choose to make your own fabric Roman shades, you can use literally whatever fabric you want – head on down to the Michael’s nearby (or your equivalent art supply store, depending on your region) and buy some big rolls of fabric and see what would look best in your room! When you’re making the fabric Roman shades yourself, you can feel free to go all-out creative. Who’s to say a reflective gold fabric wouldn’t look good? Maybe something with a velvet feel to it? The sky’s the limit when it comes to Roman shades, especially when you make them yourself!

Related posts:

Top 5 Reasons to Decorate with Roman Shades

Bamboo Roman Shades

Roman Shades vs. Mini Blinds

Custom Roman Shades

Check out the articles above for more information about Fabric Roman shades, and other Roman shade types!

Roman shades

The benefits of roman shades are myriad. Because they are made of thicker material, fabric roman shades can help block out light better than any other type of blind. This is particularly true for a room you want to keep especially dark, such as a bedroom or movie / cinema room. The usage of a dark fabric roman shade, such as a black, deep blue, or deep purple can help you create a perfectly dark atmosphere for sleeping. Other types of blinds, mini blinds especially, are more prone to letting in light even when they’re fully pulled down. In this respect, roman shades are the superior option.

Another benefit of Roman shades is that they can be dropped down from the top, or lifted up from the bottom, which other blinds are not capable of. Because of this feature, you can very easily manipulate your roman shades to allow for any angle of light to enter you room. Do you want just a sliver of light coming in from the noonday sun? Drop the top down a couple inches. Do you want full-bore sunlight without ANY shading? Pull the entire shade up or down. The other benefit of a roman shade is that when it is pulled all the way up, it can appear like a shaggy curtain covering the top of the window. This manipulation of style can really alter the look of your room without much extra expenditure or expense.

Mini Blinds

Mini blinds have their own benefits over Roman shades. If you are feeble or otherwise incapable of easily adjusting a heavy curtain-like shade, then mini blinds would be better for you. Their adjustment is easy and requires very little strength or manipulation. Mini blinds can also give you a very mediated source of light. Roman shades, on the other hand, cannot be altered to let light in intermittently up and down the length of the shade – rather, it’s an all or nothing affair. Mini blinds can also be good if you want your room to have an ambient glow to it – because they do not fully block out light even when completely drawn, you can imbue a nice soft yellow glow to your living room using mini blinds. On the flip side, a good fabric roman shade can achieve the same end result if you pick a lighter color such as tan, white, cream, or even a lighter blue or green. In fact, because Roman shades come in so many different styles, you can choose to bathe your room in a nice blue, red, green, or any other color of your choosing – an option not typically available in mini blinds. When was the last time you saw a lime green mini blind?

Well, there you have it. These are some of the main differences between Roman shades and mini blinds when you’re choosing your window dressing. Personally, I choose Roman shades, which should be evidence enough by the name of this site J But it’s up to you which you prefer yourself! There are definitely good reasons for going with either a roman shade or a mini blind, depending on what you need.

Bamboo Roman shades are a new, hip shade that can add a slight exotic flair to any room. Despite the exoticism of being made of wood instead of fabric, the bamboo Roman shades manage to maintain their classic look above all else. They do just as good a job of blocking the light as classic roman shades do, but have a very distinct stylistic look to them otherwise. The far east is coming back into mainstream living room design, and bamboo is the perfect wood to make your home unique. Everyone else is using fabric drapes, and even those who use fabric Roman shades are just going along with the crowd. Bamboo says something different.

Matching your Bamboo Roman Shades to the room

Bamboo roman shades shouldn’t be used in a room all by themselves, however. They can’t survive if the rest of your living room is covered in a dingy white carpet and a few pieces of Ikea furniture. Bamboo brings with it a certain level of class, and the average dorm room isn’t going to live up to the image it projects. It would be exactly like buying a $3,000 dark cherry dining table for a frat house. No; Bamboo Roman shades belong somewhere better.

If you’re going to use bamboo roman shades in your house, you first must have hardwood flooring to go with them. Wood goes with wood; if your shades are the only thing in your room that’s wood, they will stick out like a sore thumb. Rather, you should match them to the general décor of your room. If you have light hardwood floors, the bamboo should match the darker color of the knots. By matching the dominant color of one facet of the room with the secondary color of another, you can create a very Zen balance of style.

The mood in the room is important; Bamboo Roman Shades help create that mood

Balancing the ambiance of the room is very important for maintaining a proper mood, and bamboo Roman shades can do that to their fullest extent if included in a full-room décor. Dark wood furniture, some good potted foliage, and oriental-style rugs can go together with the shades to sculpt a room that looks right out of a movie set. The class and elegance of the wooden blinds can even class up a less impressive room – provided that you’re willing to accessorize with proper lampshades, lighting sources, and furniture to do it. A good end table or tall skinny bookcase can bring out the bamboo roman shades from the walls and help them really impact the room. The emotion and feel of your living room relies on the way you style your lightsources, and bamboo roman shades style it to the best.

Read more about Bamboo Roman Shades here: The Top 5 Reasons to Decorate with Roman Shades

Roman shades are making a big splash in home décor in recent times, and they’re very much the “in” style for the modern chic home. They’ve recently been featured on a couple big-name design programs, and they’re appearing in homes from suburbia to the cities. Roman shades aren’t just a trend, though; their classic elegance and great customizability mean they’re here to stay. Now, let’s move on to the list

1. Roman Shades come in a great variety of types and styles.

Roman shades can be tinkered with and customized to make them your very own. Because they have so many options to choose from, these shades have thousands of potential design combinations that will give your home a unique look found nowhere else. First, you can vary the print on your shades. Some of the more popular designs include floral patterns, plain old solid colors, interesting and diverse patterns, and stripes, which can be implemented either horizontally or vertically. These pattern combinations can then be further refined with the choice of fold. Roman shades can fold in four different ways, including the classic style, a more sagging European fold, a flat crinkled cut, or the most folded of all, the hobbled fold. These combinations make Roman shades an option that provides flexibility to match your furniture and décor.

2. Roman Shades can be customized to let in a variable level of lighting

Unlike most traditional shades, Roman shades can be adjusted and positioned to give you the perfect amount of light and privacy that you desire. Miniblinds and other older shade types are tightly affixed at the top, only being raised from the bottom. Roman shades, on the other hand, can be lowered from the top down OR raised from the bottom up to allow just the right angle and intensity of light into your room. Lighting is the most essential part of constructing the mood in a room, and with roman shades you can craft the perfect ambiance for your family and guests.

3. Roman Shades provide the best room-darkening potential

Traditional blinds operate with a series of slats which fold over to prevent the light from entering a room. The problem with these kinds of shades is that they fail to adequately obscure the presence of light – no matter how well a slit is covered, the light will still get through and glow the room. With Roman shades, however, the light can be completely and utterly blocked, because it operates as a solid shade without any holes for the light to penetrate. This makes roman shades perfect for a bedroom, movie room, or any other place you want total darkness.

4. Roman Shades are trendy

They have been featured on a lot of popular television shows lately and are gaining a lot of traction as the trendy, hip design for your home. ABC’s Extreme Home Makeover featured Roman shades in a lot of recent redesigns, and now that everyone has been exposed to their classic and elegant design they couldn’t be more popular. With fashion in is in, and home décor is no different.

5. Roman Shades are affordable

Discount shades are easy to find, because their popularity has increased their exposure. With more demand comes more supply, so you can find a lot of discount roman shade brands if you look hard enough. Because they maintain the same style as the more expensive brands, it can sometimes be difficult to tell the cheap roman shades from the more fancy custom roman shades. For a home operating on a budget, you can’t beat the class of Roman shades for a beautiful living room, bedroom, kitchen, or anywhere else in your home.

If you want to read more, check out one of my other articles on Bamboo Roman Shades