Window Treatments for Portsmouth, RI Homes

The Bright Side and the Shaded Side

Most window treatments in Portsmouth, RI start with a simple question: which way does the room face? On this island the answer changes everything, because water on both sides means reflected light can reach a room from more than one direction, and a house can have a glare problem on one face and a darkness problem on the other.

Rooms on the bright side

The rooms that look over open water get the full force of the sun, and that light bounces off the bay and comes in low. It is wonderful in the morning, harder in the late afternoon, and over the years it fades floors, rugs and fabric. These rooms want control without losing the view.

Solar screen roller shades are the first thing we usually show. They cut glare and heat while you still see the water, and the openness of the weave decides the balance between view and shade. Light-filtering cellular shades are the other strong choice: they soften the light, stack small at the top and help the room hold its temperature. For a long wall of glass, motorized shades on a remote or a wall switch let you lower them together as the sun comes round.

Fabric choice matters on this side. Sun-tolerant and synthetic shade fabrics hold their colour, and drapes are best lined so the lining takes the light.

Rooms on the shaded side

On the other side of the house, the job is the opposite: let in every bit of daylight while still giving privacy. Heavy fabrics and dark slats make a shaded room feel smaller. Here we lean toward light colours, sheer and light-filtering fabrics, and treatments that raise right off the glass.

A top-down, bottom-up shade is often the answer. It lowers from the top to let light in over a privacy band at the bottom, which keeps a ground-floor room bright without opening it to the road. Sheer curtains do the same job more softly. In a north-facing bedroom that still needs darkness at night, a light-filtering shade with a lined drape over it gives you both.

Tying the two sides together

Using different treatments on each side is normal, but the house should still feel like one house. The usual way is to keep a common colour or material running through. White shutters on the shaded side and white solar shades on the bright side read as one choice from the street. A drapery fabric used in the sunny living room can turn up again as pillows in the shaded den.

Cottages at Island Park and Common Fence Point

The cottages at Island Park and Common Fence Point are small houses with very little spare wall, and window treatments in Portsmouth, RI cottages have to respect that. Windows sit close together, rooms are compact and the walls between windows can be narrow. A bulky treatment overwhelms a room like this.

Keep it slim

Inside-mounted shades and blinds, sitting within the frame, keep the walls clear and make a small room feel larger. Cellular shades and roller shades have slim headrails that tuck neatly into a shallow frame. Aluminium blinds have the smallest stack of any blind, so the glass stays clear when they are raised. Where a curtain is wanted, a single light panel on a slim rod suits a cottage better than a full pair of heavy drapes.

Privacy close to neighbours

Cottages are often close to the next house and close to the road, so privacy matters even in daylight. Blinds tilted upward let light in and block the view. Top-down shades keep the lower half covered. In a cottage bathroom or a kitchen facing the neighbours, cafe-style shutters on the lower half of the window do the same job and stay out of the way.

Damp and salt

Cottages close to the shore see damp air and salt, especially those closed up part of the year. Faux wood and aluminium blinds cope with damp better than real wood, and synthetic shade fabrics hold up well. We talk through which rooms face the water on the measuring visit.

Colonials off East Main Road

The newer colonials along and off East Main Road are more regular houses. Their windows come in evenly spaced rows of double-hung sash, the rooms are a good size, and the layout is usually formal rooms at the front and family rooms at the back.

A consistent face to the street

The front windows of a colonial read as one row from the road, so they look best with the same colour and style on every window, even if the rooms behind them differ. Plantation shutters do this beautifully and suit the proportions of a colonial. Wood blinds or Roman shades in a single colour across the front are also a good fit.

Different rooms, different needs

Inside, the front dining room might carry lined drapes over shutters for a finished look. The family room at the back, often with a slider to the yard, wants something easy to live with: a cellular shade on the windows and vertical blinds or a panel track on the slider. Bedrooms upstairs usually want darkness, so a blackout cell or a lined Roman shade sits close to the frame. You can read more about our drapery on the custom drapes page.

Kitchens, baths and the back of the house

The back of an East Main Road colonial is where the house is lived in, and the window treatments there have to work hard. A kitchen window over the sink sees steam and splashes, so faux wood blinds or a vinyl roller shade that wipes clean are sensible. A bathroom needs privacy at all hours without losing daylight, which a top-down shade or a frosted-look roller shade gives. A mudroom or laundry window can take a simple aluminium blind that stays out of the way.

Choosing window treatments in Portsmouth, RI for a colonial is often a matter of balancing these practical rooms with the more formal ones at the front, so the house feels considered all the way through rather than finished at the front and forgotten at the back.

Larger Homes toward Carnegie Abbey

Toward Carnegie Abbey, the houses grow and so does the glass. Tall windows, two-storey living rooms, wide doors to terraces and rooms framed around the bay are common. These openings are where made-to-measure really earns its keep.

Tall and high windows

A window you cannot reach needs a treatment you can work from the floor. Motorized shades on a remote or wall switch are the practical answer for clerestory and two-storey windows. For a tall window at a reachable height, floor-length drapes on a long rod give a room height and softness.

Wide doors and terraces

Wide glass doors to a terrace take vertical blinds, panel tracks or drapes on a traverse rod that draws the full width. We measure the stack so the treatment sits clear of the doors when open.

Rooms built around the view

In the larger homes, the main living space is often designed around one long view of the bay. The treatment in that room should frame the view, not compete with it. Drapes stacked to either side of the glass, clear of the window when open, soften the edges of a big opening. Solar screens behind them deal with the glare on bright afternoons. When the light goes, the drapes close for warmth and privacy and the room changes character completely.

Where a room has glass on two or three walls, it may face both the bright side and the shaded side at once. We often suggest a different openness of screen on each wall, so the bright wall is calmed and the dimmer wall keeps its daylight, with the same colour throughout so the room still reads as one.

Choosing Materials for an Island House

With water all round, a few materials earn their place in Portsmouth houses more than others. Here is how the main families of treatment compare.

Cellular shades hold a layer of air in their cells, which helps a room keep its warmth in winter and its cool in summer. Light-filtering for living rooms, blackout for bedrooms.

Roller and solar shades are the slimmest treatment of all and the best at keeping a view. The openness of a solar screen is chosen for how much glare you want to cut.

Shutters are fitted to the frame, last as part of the room and suit colonials especially well. They tilt for light and close for privacy.

Blinds tilt to angle light and privacy without being raised. Faux wood and aluminium cope well with damp; real wood suits drier, inland rooms.

Drapes frame a window, add warmth and colour, and layer over any of the above. Lining protects them from the sun.

Woven wood gives a natural, relaxed texture, with light falling through in a soft pattern.

Seasonal and closed-up houses

Some Portsmouth houses, especially cottages near the shore, are closed for part of the year. Lowering the shades on the bright side before you leave protects floors and furniture from months of sun. Durable, damp-tolerant materials make sense in a house that is not heated all year, and a motorized shade can be set from a wall switch on your way out.

One room now, more later

There is no rule that a house has to be done at once. Many orders start with the hardest room, usually the bright living room facing the water, and the rest follow. We keep a record of what was made, so later rooms match.

How a Portsmouth Job Runs

We keep in steady touch with you from the first call until the last shade is up.

1. Start with the call button or the form and arrange a free quote. Let us know which rooms face the water and which stay shaded.
2. A specialist comes to measure in your home, checks each frame’s depth and notes where the light falls at different times of day.
3. You compare fabrics, slats and colours with samples at the house, or at the Swansea showroom.
4. You receive a quote laid out window by window.
5. Each treatment is made to the measurements from your house.
6. Our installers fit everything, test it and show you the controls.
7. Anything that needs a second look later goes to the same store.

You can see everything we make on our window treatments page, and more about honeycomb shades on the cellular shades page.

Get Started with a Free Quote

Your first step is a free quote. The call button connects you with the Swansea store to arrange measuring at your Portsmouth house or to ask about installation, or you can send the form and hear back from us. To see the fabrics first, the contact page has directions to the showroom.

Window Works serves 25 towns across the SouthCoast and the Rhode Island East Bay; you can see them all on our service areas page.