Roman Shades for Homes in Berkley, MA

Rooms With Light on Two Sides

Berkley lots are generous, and most houses sit well back with open ground around them. That means most rooms get daylight from two directions, which is why roman shades in Berkley, MA are planned for the room as a whole rather than one window at a time. A living room with a window to the south and another to the west needs two shades that look the same and behave differently.

The capes, ranches and newer colonials off Padelford Street and Myricks Street share this, and so do the houses at the edge of town looking over Assonet Bay. A single treatment repeated on every window rarely suits all of them. One wall takes the strong sun, the other gives soft, even light, and the shade on each has its own job to do.

• Flat, hobbled and relaxed folds in the store’s fabric range
• Each room planned as a whole, wall by wall
• Measured on site and installed by our team

Shades for Every Wall

Flat fold

Even, structured pleats with a flat face when down. A tidy choice for a colonial bedroom and the best fold for showing a print.

Hobbled fold

Soft loops that run the full drop of the shade. Plenty of fabric and a warm, traditional feel.

Relaxed fold

A plain face finishing in a soft curve at the hem. Casual, and kind to a cape’s simple rooms.

Drapes

The store’s specialty. Drapes beside a roman shade frame the window and add height.

Drapes in Berkley

Woven wood

A natural weave that folds up much like a fabric shade, for a lighter, textured look.

Woven wood in Berkley

Cellular shades

For a cold hallway or a north room, a honeycomb shade is worth weighing up.

Cellular shades in Berkley

One Room, Two Kinds of Light

The first thing we look at when planning roman shades in Berkley, MA is which way each wall faces. A corner room in a ranch or a colonial usually has a bright wall and a quieter one, and the two change places through the day. Morning light comes in low and gold from the east; the afternoon sun from the west is harder and lasts longer in summer. A north wall gives steady, cool light that almost never needs shading.

That changes how a shade is made, even when the fabric and fold stay the same. On the bright wall, a lined shade protects the face fabric, keeps glare off a screen or a sofa and holds back some of the heat. On the quieter wall, the same cloth unlined lets the soft light through and makes the most of it. From inside the room the two shades look like a set. In use, each one does what its wall needs.

Keeping the room even

With light from two sides, a room can look lopsided when one shade is down and the other is up. A lowered lined shade reads as a solid block of colour, while a raised one shows its fold at the top of the window. Choosing a fold that looks good in both positions helps. A flat fold looks tidy raised or lowered. A hobbled fold always shows its loops, so it reads the same either way. A relaxed fold sits softly when raised, with its curved hem leading the eye.

We also match the mounting heights across both walls. If one window is set a little higher than the other, as often happens where a later addition meets the original house, we adjust the mount so the tops of the shades sit on one line.

Capes

A cape’s ground floor tends to have rooms with windows on two sides: a front window toward the road and a side window toward the yard. The front windows are seen from the street, so most people want them to look the same as each other. The side windows are where you can choose a lighter treatment.

Upstairs, the dormer rooms take light mostly from the front and back, and the windows are small. A flat fold mounted above the frame raises clear of the glass, which keeps the room as bright as possible. In a child’s room or a guest room, a relaxed fold in a cheerful print brings some life to the sloping walls.

Ranches

Ranches spread their rooms along one floor, so the living room, kitchen and bedrooms often each have windows on two walls. The living room usually has the widest window in the house, and a single roman shade across it would be heavy to lift. Two or three shades side by side, in one fabric, are easier to use and let you lower just the part that faces the sun.

In the bedrooms at the ends of a ranch, the corner windows face two ways, and it is worth thinking about where the early light comes in. A lined shade on the east-facing window and the same cloth on the other window keeps the room evenly dim at night and in the early morning.

Newer colonials

The colonials off Padelford and Myricks Street are larger, with taller ceilings, bigger windows and open plan downstairs. In an open kitchen and family room, roman shades on two or three walls are seen together, so one fabric and one fold across the space keeps it calm. A flat fold in a plain or lightly textured cloth suits most of these rooms, with a hobbled fold kept for a formal dining room or a main bedroom where a richer look is welcome.

Many of these houses have a window over the kitchen sink and another at the breakfast table, on different walls. An unlined flat fold at the sink and a lined one at the table, both in the same cloth, is a simple way to handle the two.

Through the Seasons

A room lit from two sides changes with the calendar as much as with the clock. In midsummer the sun stands high, so a south window lets in less direct light than you might expect, while a west window takes long, hot sun late into the evening. In winter it is the other way round: the sun stays low, reaches deep into a south-facing room and is welcome for the warmth and brightness it brings.

That is worth thinking about when you choose roman shades in Berkley, MA. A shade on a south wall may spend most of the winter raised, so its stack and the look of its folds at the top of the window matter more than how it looks lowered. A shade on a west wall may come down every summer afternoon, so its face fabric and backing matter most. We ask how each room is used across the year, not just on the day we visit.

Home offices and screens

More houses now have a room used for work, and a bedroom or den with windows on two walls can be hard on a screen. Light from behind the desk throws glare on the screen; light from the side is easier to live with. A roman shade on the window behind the desk, lowered partway, takes the glare off without closing the room in, while the side window stays open for daylight. In a room like this a flat fold in a mid-tone cloth is often the most practical, because it softens the light without making the room feel dim.

Starting with one room

There is no need to do the whole house at once. Many people begin with the room that bothers them most, often a bright living room or a bedroom that wakes them too early, and add others later. If the first shades are chosen with the rest of the house in mind, later rooms can match them in cloth or colour, and the front of the house still looks consistent from the road. Planning roman shades in Berkley, MA this way spreads the work without leaving a mismatched set of windows.

Assonet Bay Rooms

At the edge of town, the houses looking over Assonet Bay add a third source of light: the bright reflection off the water. Water-facing rooms are often the ones people use most, and they are also the ones where the sun is hardest to manage.

Since the bay is the reason for the room, the shade should vanish upward when it is not wanted. Fixed to the wall a little above the frame, a roman shade gathers almost entirely off the glass. Half lowered, it trims the glare from the upper panes and leaves the water in view beneath. Across a long run of bay-side glass, a series of narrower shades in one cloth beats a single broad one, because each can be dropped on its own as the sun moves along the wall.

Fabric choice counts for most in these rooms. Strong colour shows the effect of strong light sooner, so many bay-facing rooms are dressed in soft, light cloths, backed so the sun meets the backing first. Our specialists can point out which cloths in the range sit happily in a sunny room and which are better saved for the north side.

Choosing the Fabric

Every roman shade we make starts with the cloth, chosen from the fabric range in our showroom. Drapery is the store’s specialty, so the range is broad, and the choice is easier with the cloth in your hand in your own light.

• Crisp cottons and linens keep a sharp edge on every pleat, ideal for kitchens and colonial bedrooms.
• Weightier, supple cloths round out into generous hobbled loops for dining rooms and main bedrooms.
• Plain weaves and textures show off their surface on a flat or relaxed face.
• Stripes and prints stay readable on a flat fold, which keeps the repeat whole.

When a room takes light from two sides, it is worth looking at a fabric sample against both walls. A colour can look quite different in morning light from the east and in flat light from the north, and we would rather you saw that before ordering than after.

Pattern scale is the other thing to weigh. A large print needs a wide shade to show a full repeat, so on the narrow windows of a cape it can look cut off, while a small check or a fine stripe reads well at any width. In a colonial with big windows a bolder pattern has room to breathe. Where one room mixes a wide window and a narrow one, a small pattern or a plain cloth with texture keeps the two looking like a pair.

Linings

Backing a shade changes it more than most people expect. Behind a light linen, no backing at all gives a soft glow. Add a backing and the folds firm up, the room gets more private and the face cloth is shielded from direct sun, which is what most bedrooms and road-facing rooms want. On a two-sided room, lining one shade and not the other is often the right answer, and the same face cloth keeps them matched.

Within the frame or on the wall

Fitted within the frame, a shade looks trim and leaves the casing visible, provided the opening is deep enough. Fitted on the wall over the window, it hides the casing, cuts the light leaking round the edges and can be raised above the glass altogether. Even a newer Berkley colonial varies from window to window in depth and headroom, so the choice is made at each opening.

Your Order, Step by Step

From your first question until the last shade is up, we stay in regular contact. A typical Berkley order runs like this.

1. Get in touch by phone or through the form, name the rooms, and we book your free quote.
2. A specialist visits, measures each opening and notes the direction every wall faces, the depth of each frame and the headroom over it.
3. Fabric, fold and backing are settled window by window, with samples in your rooms or on a trip to the showroom.
4. A written quote arrives with every window itemised.
5. Production follows, to the sizes taken on the visit.
6. Installation day: each shade goes up, gets raised and lowered a few times so the pleats train evenly, and you are shown the operation.

Tying the room together

Window Works sews drapes, pillows and duvet covers too, so the shade can begin a scheme instead of ending it. Picture a cushion in the shade cloth on the sofa beneath, or bedding in a matching colour upstairs. Panels hung beside the shade on the sunnier wall soften it and frame the outlook. The full list for the town is on our Berkley window treatments page, and each fold is explained in more depth under roman shades.

Care

Dust is the main enemy, and a brush attachment run gently across the pleats every few weeks deals with it. Spots can be dabbed, never rubbed, once you have tried the cloth somewhere out of sight. Leave proper cleaning to a specialist cleaner, since home washing tends to shrink fabric and pull the folds out of line. Older shades with a frayed cord or a sticking headrail can come to us for a look.

What Sets Window Works Apart

Since 1988, Window Works has been a Swansea family business, and today a second generation runs it. Over 37 years of fitting homes from the SouthCoast to the East Bay of Rhode Island sits behind every Berkley order.

• Experienced specialists in window treatments
• Drapery and fabric as the core of the business
• Windows measured at your house, shades hung by our installers
• Warranties available on what we supply
• Steady contact from first call to finished room

Berkley is a short drive from the showroom, where the cloths and the Norman collection can be compared side by side.

Visit the showroom

Book Your Free Quote

For roman shades in Berkley, MA, the first step costs nothing: a free quote. Ring the Swansea store from the call button to fix a measuring visit or talk installation, or leave your details on the form for a reply. Directions to the showroom, for anyone who wants to handle the cloths first, are on the contact page. Google reviewers give Window Works a 5.0 rating.