Motorized Blinds and Shades in Rehoboth, MA

Deep Sills, Open Fields

The antique colonials and farmhouses along Winthrop Street and Route 44 were built with thick walls, so their windows are small and set deep, with wide sills that tend to collect plants, books and the odd lamp. Reaching across a sill like that to work a cord is a small daily nuisance. Motorized blinds in Rehoboth, MA remove it: the shade sits snug in the deep frame and goes up or down from a remote or a switch, with nothing to lean over.

Many of these houses also stand on large lots in farm country, with no close neighbours and nothing between the windows and the open land. That means full sun across the fields in the morning or the evening, and a lot of dark around the house at night. The newer colonial subdivisions off Bay State Road bring a different kind of house, with taller windows and two-storey rooms, but the same open sky.

• Fitted to deep, old frames or tall new glass
• Raised and lowered by remote or wall switch
• Measured at the house and hung by our team

Which Rehoboth Windows We Power

Small, deep-set sash

Old windows with a deep reveal, where a powered shade tucks inside the frame and the trim stays clear.

Wide sills you would rather not lean over

Keep the plants and keepsakes where they are; the shade works without anyone reaching past them.

Rooms facing open land

Windows with nothing to screen them, where the sun comes straight across the fields.

Two-storey rooms off Bay State Road

Tall upper windows in a newer colonial’s family room or front hall, beyond reach by hand.

The bedside remote

Close the bedroom at night and let the morning in, all without leaving the pillow.

A switch by the back door

For a mudroom, kitchen or hall you pass through, so the shades follow your comings and goings.

When the Nearest Neighbour Is a Field Away

Living without near neighbours changes what a window covering is for. In a town house, shades are mostly about privacy. In much of Rehoboth they are about light. A farmhouse with open land on every side takes the sun from sunrise to sunset, with nothing to soften it, and the low light of a winter morning or a late summer evening comes straight across the fields and deep into the rooms.

That is where motorized blinds in Rehoboth, MA earn their keep. The shades on the sunny side of the house get moved several times a day as the light changes, which is a lot of reaching by hand, especially across deep sills. With a motor, you lower the east windows over breakfast, raise them by mid-morning, and bring the west windows down as the evening sun gets low, all from where you are.

Privacy still matters after dark, just differently. A lit house in open country is visible from the road and from a long way off. Shades that can be closed without leaving your chair as the evening draws in keep the house from feeling exposed, without a walk round every room.

The antique houses along Winthrop Street and Route 44

The older colonials and farmhouses are full of character, and their windows are part of it. Most are small, set into thick walls, with a deep reveal and a wide sill. The sash may be original or a careful replacement, and the trim is often old and worth showing off.

For a powered shade, that depth is helpful. The motor and headrail can sit inside the reveal, so from most of the room you see the shade, not the hardware, and the old trim stays fully visible. We measure the depth at every window, though, because in an antique house the openings are rarely the same. A window in the original part of the house may be deeper than one in a later ell, and frames that have settled over the years can be slightly out of square. Each shade is made to its own opening.

The small size of these windows matters too. On a short window, a raised shade can take up a fair share of the glass. We suggest styles with a compact stack, so that when the shade is up, the light and the view through a small old window are not cut down further.

What sits on a wide sill

Wide sills are one of the pleasures of an old house, and people use them. Plants, a row of books, a lamp, a jug of flowers. A shade lowered by hand means moving those things or leaning over them. A powered shade inside the frame comes down in front of the glass and stops just above the sill, or wherever we set it, without anything being moved.

We note what lives on each sill when we measure, so the shade’s stopping point clears it. Where a sill holds something tall, we can set the shade to stop a little higher. Where a window is opened in summer, we plan for that as well, so the shade never comes down onto a raised sash.

The ell, the addition and the original house

Few antique Rehoboth houses are a single block. Most have grown: an ell added behind the main house, a kitchen wing, a family room built on later. Each part tends to have its own windows, and they rarely match. The original rooms keep their small, deep-set sash. The newer parts may have larger, shallower windows set in thinner walls, sometimes a bank of them looking out over the back land.

That mix is worth planning as a whole. We usually suggest one fabric and colour for a room that spans old and new, then decide window by window which ones are powered. The bigger windows in the addition, which are heavier to lift and often the ones facing the sun, are the natural place for a motor, while the small old sash can stay by hand if they are easy to reach. When we plan motorized blinds in Rehoboth, MA houses like these, we measure every window in the room, old and new, so the shades line up and look like one choice.

The farmhouse kitchen

The kitchen is often the busiest room in a Rehoboth farmhouse, and its main window is often over the sink, set into a deep wall behind a counter. Reaching over the taps and across a deep sill to raise or lower a shade is awkward, and in practice that shade tends to stay in one place. A powered shade there, worked from a switch by the kitchen door or a remote kept on a shelf, can be up for the morning light and down in the evening when the lamps are on. A fabric that copes with a kitchen’s steam and wipes clean is the sensible choice for that window.

Bedrooms that face the sunrise

With no trees or houses to block it, the sunrise in a Rehoboth bedroom can arrive very early in summer. A room darkening fabric on a powered shade lets you keep the room dark for as long as you like, then raise the shade from bed when you are ready, rather than getting up to do it. In winter, when the sun is welcome, the same shade can be raised first thing to let the low light warm the room.

Newer Colonials off Bay State Road

The colonial subdivisions off Bay State Road are a different job. These houses tend to have more glass and taller rooms: a two-storey family room, a front hall with a tall window above the door, a window halfway up the stairs. Those upper windows are hard to reach and are often left bare for that reason, which leaves a hot landing in summer and a stairway on display at night.

A powered shade lets you finally cover them. A switch at the bottom of the stairs works the landing window. A remote in the family room handles the high glass, lowering it on a bright afternoon and raising it again when the sun has moved round. We match the fabric and colour to the shades on the lower windows of the same room, so the wall looks planned rather than mixed.

Bay State Road lots are generous, and many of these colonials sit well back from the road with open lawn or woods behind. That gives the back of the house a lot of glass facing the yard, often a family room with a run of windows and a pair of tall windows above them. Because no neighbour looks in, those rooms are usually left open by day, and the shades are wanted mainly for the strong afternoon sun and for evenings. A powered shade on each of the high windows, with hand-operated shades in matching fabric below, covers both without anyone fetching a ladder.

The kitchens in these houses often open to the family room, with a window over the sink behind a deep counter and sometimes a slider onto a deck. A small motorized shade over the sink is a practical change that gets used every day. For a slider, vertical blinds or a panel track are usually the better choice, and our vertical blinds in Rehoboth page covers those.

Choosing remote, switch or both

A remote suits rooms where you sit and stay: the living room, a bedroom, a home office. It lives on a table or the arm of a chair, and you adjust the light as the day goes on.

A switch suits rooms you pass through: a front hall, a stair landing, a mudroom or a kitchen by the back door. It sits on the wall at the door, and the shade goes up or down as you go by.

Plenty of rooms suit both, and we will ask how you use each one before suggesting anything.

How a Rehoboth Order Runs

You are kept up to date at every stage, and we stay in contact with you until the last shade is working.

1. Start by booking a free quote. Use the call button or the form and mention which rooms you have in mind.
2. Come to the Swansea showroom, if you like, to see the styles, handle the fabrics and try the controls.
3. We visit for measuring in your home, recording the depth of each old reveal or the height of each tall window, and noting what sits on the sills.
4. We agree with you which windows to power, and how each room should be run.
5. Your quote arrives with every window listed, so you can see what is motorized and what is not.
6. The shades are made to the measurements taken at the house.
7. Our installers fit them, set up the remotes and switches, and go through them with you before leaving.

The shade comes first

A motor makes a shade easier to move, but the shade still decides how a room looks and how the light behaves. For a farmhouse parlour where you want soft light and a view of the fields, a light-filtering fabric works well. For an east-facing bedroom, a darkening fabric does more good. For a newer colonial’s family room, you might use one fabric on the lower windows and a heavier one on the high glass that takes the strongest sun, in matching colours.

You can compare fabrics at the showroom and see how they look with daylight behind them. Our cellular shades in Rehoboth page covers one of the styles that suits older houses well, and the full range for town is on our window treatments for Rehoboth homes page.

Winter light and the cold months

In winter, a house on open land gets a different benefit from its shades. The low sun is welcome through the day, so the shades on the sunny side can be raised early to let it in, then lowered as soon as the sun goes down to give the room a layer between the glass and the evening. Doing that every day by hand, round every window, is the kind of routine that slips. With motorized blinds in Rehoboth, MA homes, it becomes easy enough to keep up all season, room by room.

A house that looks consistent from the road

An antique colonial’s front is usually symmetrical, with windows evenly spaced either side of the door. When some of those windows are powered and others are not, we keep the fabric, colour and lowered height the same across the front, so nothing looks out of step from the road. In the newer colonials the same idea applies across the front of the house and along the back wall facing the yard.

No cords to worry about

A powered shade has no lift cord hanging by the glass. On a deep sill, there is no cord coiled among the plants, and in a house with children or pets there is nothing loose within reach. The guide to cordless blinds and child safety explains the safety side.

Looking after powered shades

A light dusting keeps fabric or slats looking right; use a damp cloth only where the material allows. Keep the sill clear of anything tall enough to get in the way of the shade’s travel. Now and then, run a seldom-used shade through its full travel so you notice early if it starts to move unevenly, and call the store if it does. The styles we can supply with a motor are described on our main motorized blinds page.

Why Rehoboth Homes Choose Window Works

Window Works began in Swansea in 1988, and the same family runs it today, now into its second generation. That is over 37 years of window treatments for homes across the SouthCoast and the Rhode Island East Bay, Rehoboth’s farmhouses and colonials among them.

• A knowledgeable team of window treatment specialists
• We measure in your home and our own installers fit the shades
• Warranties offered on what we sell
• We keep in touch with you until everything is done
• A showroom in Swansea to see the fabrics and try the controls

Visit the showroom

Talk to Us About Your House

Getting motorized blinds in Rehoboth, MA under way starts with a free quote. The call button connects you with the Swansea store, where we can arrange measuring in your home and answer questions about installation. The form is there if you would rather write. To see the shades and try a remote in person, visit the showroom, a short drive from Rehoboth; directions are on the contact page. Window Works holds a 5.0 rating on Google.