Narrow Openings and Many Windows
Lincoln’s houses fall into two camps when it comes to windows. In Lonsdale and Manville, the mill housing keeps its original narrow openings, each one slim and tall, set into old frames that rarely match exactly. Around Lincoln Woods and Breakneck Hill, the newer colonials have standard window sizes, and more of them: a two-storey house carries a great many. Those two situations call for different thinking, and motorized blinds in Lincoln, RI are planned with that in mind. In the mill houses, the motor makes a narrow, tall window easy to use. In the colonials, the real question is which of the many windows deserve one.
Off Great Road, the larger houses on bigger lots add wide glass, tall rooms and long views.
- A remote, a wall switch, or both in the same room
- Each blind and shade made to its own window
- Measured at your house; installed and set up by our team
Where a Motor Pays Off in a Lincoln House
Slim original openings
The narrow windows in Lonsdale and Manville houses take slim, tall shades. A motor carries each one cleanly to the top of the frame.
The colonial’s busiest windows
Not every window needs a motor. The bedroom, the family room and the front room usually make the shortlist.
Wide glass off Great Road
Larger houses with tall rooms and glass doors to the yard, shaded from across the room as the sun moves.
Motorized Blinds in Lincoln, RI Mill Housing
The mill housing in Lonsdale and Manville was built close to the river and the mills, in rows and clusters, with rooms of a modest size and windows to match. Choosing motorized blinds in Lincoln, RI for these houses begins with the openings themselves.
Original narrow openings
The windows in these houses are narrow, often tall for their width, and set into frames that have seen plenty of years. Many keep their original openings even where the sash has been replaced. That shape suits a slim shade, light enough to raise easily, but it brings two issues. The top of a tall, narrow window is a stretch to reach, and a cord hanging the full height of a slim frame is untidy and easily tangled. A motor deals with both: the shade travels the whole height cleanly, and there is no cord at all.
Frames that do not match
Older houses settle, and windows that started out the same size rarely stay that way. Two windows side by side can differ in width, one may be slightly out of square, and the depth available for an inside mount often varies from room to room. A powered shade needs a level, true mount to run straight, so measuring every opening matters more here than anywhere. We check each frame for size, square and depth, and plan each mount so the shade hangs evenly, even where the frame does not.
Close neighbours and street-side rooms
Mill housing sits close to the street and close to the next house. Front rooms are on show after dark and side windows look across at the neighbours. A shade that can be stopped partway, covering the lower sash while the top stays open to the sky, gives privacy without shutting out the light, and a motor makes that position easy to find every day. A switch beside the front room’s light switch brings the shades down at dusk as the lamps go on.
Colonials Around Lincoln Woods and Breakneck Hill
Near Lincoln Woods and on the slopes of Breakneck Hill, the newer colonials make the opposite demand from the mill houses. Their openings are standard and square, so fitting them is simple. The challenge is the sheer number. Count the windows in a typical two-storey colonial, from the front rooms to the bedrooms, baths, landing and breakfast nook, and the total is far more than any mill cottage carries.
A walk through the house
The easiest way to decide where motors belong is to walk the house in the order you use it through a day. Start upstairs. The main bedroom is where shades move twice every day without fail, down at bedtime and up at waking, so it tops most lists. Children’s rooms come next if early light wakes anyone too soon. Down the stairs, look at the landing: if its window sits above easy reach, it is a candidate. On the ground floor, the front room is the one passers-by see into once the lamps are lit, and the kitchen nook often has windows tucked behind a table where nobody can comfortably lean across.
What usually drops off the list: guest rooms, small bath windows and the laundry. Those can still be dressed in matching fabric with ordinary lift controls, and once lowered they look no different from their powered neighbours.
The breakfast nook
A breakfast nook in a colonial is often a small bay or a run of windows wrapped around a table or a built-in bench. The light there in the morning is lovely and, on the wrong side of the house, blinding. Leaning over the table or kneeling on the bench to reach a cord is awkward, so those shades tend to stay wherever they were last left. A control by the kitchen doorway lets you lower them when the sun hits the table and lift them once it moves on.
The view from the road
A colonial presents an orderly face to the road, with windows stacked in neat columns. That order is easy to spoil with shades left at random heights, and easy to keep with powered ones that stop where you set them. We decide the fabric, the colour and the headrail for the whole front first, then mark which of those windows will run on a motor, so the face of the house stays tidy either way.
Family rooms and the late sun
Many of these colonials put the family room at the rear, with a broad window and a slider out to a deck or patio. When the sun swings round to the back late in the day, the television washes out and the seats nearest the glass get warm. Rather than shutting the shades for the whole afternoon, a remote kept beside the sofa lets you drop them for the worst of it and lift them again as the light softens behind the trees. The slider’s treatment is planned around the handle and the track, so it stays clear whenever the door is open.
Lots that back onto the woods
Some of the houses near Lincoln Woods back onto trees, and that changes the light through the year. In summer, the leaves shade the back rooms and the light is soft and green; in winter, with the branches bare, the same rooms take low, bright sun straight across the floor. A shade that hardly moved from June to September suddenly needs lowering every afternoon in December. With powered shades, that seasonal shift is no extra trouble: the remote is there when the low winter sun needs dealing with and forgotten again once it has passed. It is a small thing that makes motorized blinds in Lincoln, RI houses beside the woods easy to live with all year.
Ready to Get Started? Book Your Free Quote
Call the Swansea store for a free quote, or come and see the samples in person.
Larger Houses off Great Road
Out along Great Road, the lots open up and the houses with them. Homes sit well back from the road, often with more glass, higher ceilings and rooms that face a long stretch of lawn or woods. With nobody close enough to look in, privacy fades as a concern and sunlight takes over.
Clerestory and upper rows
A few of these houses have a living room open to the roof, or a family room with a second band of glass high above the first. Nobody reaches those upper panes by hand, so they tend to go uncovered and let hard midday sun pour onto the floor. If the shape of the glass suits a shade, a powered one fitted up there is run from a wall control at eye level, and the windows underneath can match it, powered or not.
French doors and terraces
Doors out to a terrace, a pool or a garden are open half the summer, which means any treatment on them has to get out of the way completely. We note which way each door swings, where the handle sits and how much room there is above the frame, then plan the shade so a door can always be opened freely. A control beside the door lowers everything when you lock up.
Following the sun around a large house
The bigger the house, the more the light varies from one side to another over a day. Breakfast-room windows may want shading early, while the rooms on the far side stay comfortable until late afternoon. Having a remote in each main room means you deal with only the windows that need it at that hour, without a tour of the house.
Material Before Motor
Whatever the house, the blind or shade does the real work, and the motor makes it easy to use. So the first decision is always the material.
A light filtering fabric keeps a room bright while softening the view in, which suits a living room close to the street in Lonsdale as much as a family room off Great Road. A room darkening fabric is the choice for bedrooms. Natural textures give a warm, filtered light that suits a family room or a study. Slatted blinds tilt to send light up toward the ceiling, which helps in a home office or a kitchen. We go through the options for each room, and we will tell you which of the styles you like can take a motor.
For the narrow windows of a mill house, a fabric shade is often the neater choice, because it lowers as one slim panel and stacks compactly at the top of a small frame, leaving more of the glass clear when raised. In a newer colonial’s kitchen or a home office, a slatted blind can be the better fit, since tilting the slats sends daylight up toward the ceiling and away from a screen or a work surface. Bedrooms in any of these houses usually want the fullest darkness a fabric can give. Mixing styles from room to room is normal; keeping the colours related is what makes the house feel considered.
How a Lincoln Order Runs
From your first call until the last shade is running, someone from the store stays in touch. The order moves through these stages.
- Booking: you reach us through the call button or the form, tell us roughly which rooms you are thinking about, and we set up a free quote.
- Measuring: a specialist comes out and takes the size of every window. In a mill house that also means checking frames for square and depth; in a larger house it means the upper glass and every door.
- Planning: we sit down with you and settle, room by room, what runs on a remote, what runs on a wall control and what stays on ordinary lift controls.
- Choosing: you settle on materials and colours, and the samples are waiting at the Swansea showroom if you would like to handle them first.
- Quoting: the quote lists each window and how it will be operated, so nothing is a surprise.
- Making: every blind and shade is made to the sizes we took at your house.
- Fitting: the installers put everything up, set the controls, try each shade and take you through it.
Remote or wall switch
A remote suits a room where you sit: a family room, a bedroom, a study. A switch suits a room you walk into at a set time of day, such as a front room at dusk or a stair hall. Many rooms have both. We write the plan into your quote window by window.
No dangling cords
Powered shades have no lift cords. On narrow mill-house windows, that keeps the slim frames tidy. In family rooms and bedrooms where children play, it means nothing loose within reach. Our guide to cordless blinds and child safety explains more.
Looking after them
Dust the fabric or slats now and then, keep plants and furniture out of each shade’s path, and run any rarely used shade fully up and down from time to time. If one ever moves unevenly, call the store and tell us which window.
Adding more later
Many orders for motorized blinds in Lincoln houses start with the main bedroom or the family room, and more windows follow once the household has lived with them. Later shades can be matched to the first.
Who Does the Work
Window Works started in Swansea in 1988, a family store that the second generation now runs. More than 37 years on, its specialists cover homes from the Massachusetts SouthCoast through the Rhode Island East Bay, and as far north as Lincoln.
- Window treatment specialists with long experience
- A measuring visit for every house, old frames or new
- Our own installers, start to finish
- Regular contact from us until every window is done
- Warranties offered on what we sell
See Them in Person
The Swansea showroom is the place to compare fabrics, textures and colours with daylight behind them, and to picture motorized blinds in Lincoln, RI rooms before you order. Bring a photo of the room or a paint chip and our specialists will help you narrow it down.
The main motorized blinds page covers the service in full, and the Lincoln window treatments page shows everything else we make for houses in town.
Questions from Lincoln
My mill house has narrow windows that are not all the same size. Can they be motorized?
Yes. We measure each window on its own, checking size, square and depth, so every shade is made to its frame and runs straight.
My colonial has a lot of windows. Do they all need motors?
No. Most households motorize the main bedroom, the family room, the front room and any hard-to-reach window, and keep ordinary controls elsewhere in a matching fabric.
Can you shade the upper row of windows in a tall family room?
Where the shape of the window allows, yes. Powered shades on upper glass are run from a switch or a remote below.
What fabric suits a front room close to the street?
A light filtering fabric keeps the room bright by day while softening the view in. Lowered fully at night, it gives privacy.
How do I get a free quote?
Press the call button or send the form on this page, and tell us about the windows you have in mind.
Book a Free Quote
When you are ready, use the call button to book a free quote with the Swansea store, and ask about measuring in your home or installation while you are on the line. The form on this page reaches us as well. Directions to the Swansea showroom are on the contact page if you would like to see the fabrics first. Window Works is rated 5.0 on Google.