Custom Blinds for Homes in Newport, RI

Old Glass, Small Panes, No Standard Sizes

Newport’s oldest houses were glazed long before anyone made windows to a catalogue size. On the Point and Historic Hill, colonials carry large sash divided into many small panes by thin wooden bars, and the shingle-style houses that followed added windows of every shape and proportion, often with barely two the same size in one house. Add the expectations of historic-district review, and nearly every job here is made to measure. That is the starting point for custom blinds in Newport, RI: each blind is built to one particular window, and nothing is assumed.

The rest of the city brings its own conditions. The Fifth Ward’s streets are close-built, so privacy at street level comes first. Along Ocean Drive, larger properties face open water, with broad glass, hard light and salt wind. The four blind materials, wood, faux wood, aluminium and vertical, are chosen differently in each.

• Every window measured at the house, pane by pane where it matters
• Wood, faux wood, aluminium and vertical blinds
• Fitted by the Window Works installers from Swansea

Blinds for Every Kind of Newport Window

Colonial sash on the Point

Wood slats in a quiet colour behind small-paned glass, sized to sit inside old frames and stop level with the sash.

Shingle-style variety

Narrow stair lights, wide bays, little gable windows. Each gets its own blind, with aluminium on the smallest openings.

Fifth Ward privacy

Slats tipped upward give daylight while blocking the view from a pavement a few steps away.

Upper floors in the Fifth Ward

Upstairs, Fifth Ward houses often have bedrooms facing the street and the house next door at the same height, which makes privacy just as pressing as on the ground floor, and at night more so. A blind fitted inside the frame, close to the glass, with a slat that closes tightly, keeps out both the view and the street lamps. Smaller rooms at the back may have a single window, and a lighter slat colour helps them feel larger. Choosing custom blinds in Newport, RI for a close-built street is mostly about these two floors of windows facing the neighbours, and settling them first.

Ocean Drive glass

Vertical vanes for broad doors and window walls facing the water. See vertical blinds in Newport.

Custom Blinds in Newport, RI for Multi-Pane Sash

A colonial sash window on the Point or Historic Hill is a grid of small panes held by glazing bars, and the grid is what the street sees. A blind behind it should support that grid rather than compete with it. In practice that means a few things.

Colour behind the glass

Slats seen through many small panes are broken up into a pattern, and a strong or dark colour turns that pattern into something busy. White, ivory and soft natural wood tones read quietly behind old glass and let the glazing bars and the trim stay the main feature from outside. Inside the room, a stained wood slat can still be the right call where the woodwork is stained, and many houses use a paler colour on the street side and a warmer one in the back rooms.

Where the blind stops

On a double-hung sash, the meeting rail, where the upper and lower sash overlap, crosses the window at a fixed height. A blind lowered halfway looks tidiest when its bottom rail sits at or near that line, so the upper sash is covered and the lower one clear, or the reverse. We note the height of the meeting rail on each window, which helps you set the blinds to one level across the front of the house.

Depth, old frames and interior storms

Many older Newport houses have deep frames, which suits an inside mount. Some also have interior storm panels fitted inside the frame for winter, and those take up depth the blind would otherwise use. We measure the usable depth with any storm panels in place, check that the slats can tilt clear of the sash locks, and where the depth is not there, mount the blind above the trim, matched to the casing’s width.

Old frames are rarely square. A window can be wider at the head than at the sill or longer on one side. Each one is measured at several points, and the blind is made to the tightest so it runs freely.

The Point and Historic Hill

The colonials of the Point and Historic Hill sit close to their streets and often close to one another, with windows across the front set evenly around a central door. Inside, rooms are not always large, ceilings vary from floor to floor, and some houses keep the pockets of original interior shutters beside the windows.

Wood is the natural partner for these rooms. It is light, it suits the woodwork, and in a quiet colour it sits well behind the sash. Where a house still has working interior shutters, a blind may not be needed at all on those windows, or it may go only on the windows that have lost theirs, in a colour that matches the painted woodwork. Kitchens and bathrooms take faux wood, which looks the same from the street and handles steam. Back rooms added in later centuries, as many of these houses have, are measured separately, since their windows rarely match the front of the house.

On the top floor, windows under the roof are often small and set low. Aluminium suits them, with its slim slat and small stack keeping what glass there is clear when raised.

Historic-district review and blinds

Historic-district review in Newport is concerned with what the public sees. A blind is inside the house, but it is seen through the window, so we keep street-facing blinds discreet: one quiet colour across the front, blinds set to matching heights, and inside mounts where the frames allow, so nothing projects past the opening. We are not the review body and cannot speak for it, so if you are unsure whether anything about your windows needs approval, it is best to ask the city before you order.

Shingle-Style Houses

The shingle-style houses that came after the colonials are a different puzzle. Their windows were placed for the rooms inside rather than for symmetry outside, so one house can have a wide bay in the living hall, a tall narrow stair light, a run of small windows under the eaves, casements grouped over a window seat and a little round-headed window in a gable.

Each of those is measured as its own window. A bay takes one blind per window, made to the same drop so the bottom rails line up around the curve or angle. Casements grouped over a window seat take a blind per casement, with the controls placed where you can reach them without kneeling on the cushion, and with clearance checked for the casement handles. The tall stair light takes a long blind with its controls set for someone on the stair. Small eaves windows suit aluminium. A round-headed or arched top is a shape a horizontal blind is not made for, so we fit the rectangular part beneath it and discuss the top separately.

Planning an old house over time

Few owners of a colonial or shingle-style house do every window at once, and there is no need to. A sensible order is to start with the street-facing rooms, where the house is seen and where privacy matters, then move to bedrooms, then the kitchen and service rooms. Custom blinds in Newport, RI ordered this way stay consistent because we keep the details of each order, colour, slat and mount, so a room done next year matches one done this year.

The Fifth Ward

The Fifth Ward’s streets are close-built, with houses near the pavement and near each other. Front rooms and side windows face passers-by and neighbours at close range, so privacy is the first job a blind has to do.

A blind lowered with its slats tipped upward is the simplest answer: daylight goes to the ceiling, and from outside you see only the slats. After dark, the slats close. Side windows facing the house next door are often left lowered all day at that angle. Because the houses are seen from close up, one colour across the street-facing windows keeps the front tidy, and faux wood in the kitchen and bath can match wood in the front rooms so nobody outside can tell them apart.

Ocean Drive

The larger properties along Ocean Drive face open water, often with broad windows, doors onto terraces and rooms that take the light from sunrise to sunset. Here the concerns are glare, salt and scale.

Vertical blinds handle wide doors and window walls: the vanes run on one track, draw clear of the door and turn to cut the sun without hiding the view. Where a wall of glass is made up of separate windows, horizontal blinds made one per window, with their headrails on a single line, give finer control. Faux wood and aluminium cope with salt and damp in the rooms that face the water, and wood is kept to the sheltered rooms. On the largest windows, a motorised blind raised and tilted from a remote or a wall switch saves lifting a heavy blind several times a day. See motorized blinds in Newport for more.

Light from sunrise to sunset

An Ocean Drive house facing open water can take direct sun on one side in the morning and on another in the late afternoon, with bright reflected light off the sea in between. Blinds on each side are set differently through the day: angled against the morning sun on the east, open at midday, angled against the low western sun later. On a row of motorised blinds, that is a press of a switch. Rooms used mainly in the evening, such as a dining room facing the sunset, benefit most from blinds that can cut glare at a low angle without closing the room in.

Which Store This Is

You are reading the website of Window Works Blinds Shutters and Shades. Our family opened the store in 1988, the second generation runs it today, and our showroom stands in Swansea, Massachusetts. Pressing the call button connects you with that showroom, and its address is on the contact page. Our own people travel from Swansea to measure Newport windows and, later, to fit the blinds.

An Order, Start to Finish

1. Phone us through the call button, or use the form, and book a free quote; mention the neighbourhood and the rooms that need blinds.
2. On the visit, a specialist takes each window’s measurements, records frame depth, meeting rail height and any storm panels, and goes through mount, material and colour with you.
3. You settle colours, slat widths and controls, with samples brought to you or at the showroom.
4. The quote lists every window by room, so you can check what will hang where.
5. Every blind is made to our measurements.
6. Our installers fit them, check each one lifts, lowers and tilts as it should, and walk you through the controls.
7. We keep in contact with you through the whole order until it is finished.

Material by setting

• Colonial front rooms on the Point and Historic Hill: wood in a quiet colour, inside the frame where the depth allows.
• Kitchens, bathrooms and any room facing the water: faux wood, which handles damp and salt and looks like painted wood.
• Small eaves, attic and gable windows: aluminium, the slimmest slat and the smallest stack.
• Doors onto terraces and wide window walls: vertical blinds on a single track.

Pairing blinds with drapes

In a colonial parlour or a shingle-style living hall, blinds inside the frame and drapes outside it make a strong combination: the blinds handle light and privacy, the drapes bring colour and soften tall windows. Window Works sews drapery and makes custom fabric decor, so both are measured on one visit. In some rooms a different treatment is a better fit, such as shutters or cellular shades, and we will tell you when that is the case. The Newport window treatments page lists every service we offer in the city, and the custom blinds hub describes the full range.

Cleaning

Blinds on the water side of a Newport house collect a salty film that traps dust, so they are worth a going-over every couple of weeks; inland rooms can go longer. Use a soft duster on everything, plus a lightly damp cloth on faux wood and aluminium if they need it, followed by a dry one. Keep real wood dry. Vertical vanes are cleaned without taking them down. Behind small panes of old glass, clean slats show from the street more than you might expect.

What You Get from Window Works

For over 37 years the Swansea store has measured, supplied and fitted window treatments across the SouthCoast of Massachusetts and the Rhode Island East Bay, Newport included.

• Specialists in window treatments, used to old frames and odd sizes
• A measuring visit at your house, every window on its own
• Installation by our team
• Contact kept with you until the last blind is up
• Warranties offered on what we sell

See It in Swansea

Our showroom in Swansea is the place to judge custom blinds in Newport, RI houses before ordering: hold a white slat and a stained one against each other, see how a colour reads in daylight and try the lift and tilt yourself. The Norman range is on show there too.

Visit the showroom

Start with a Free Quote

The first step is a quote, and it is free. The call button connects you to the Window Works store in Swansea to book it, arrange measuring at your Newport home or ask about installation. The form on this page works as well. If you would like to see the samples first, the contact page has the showroom’s address. Window Works is rated 5.0 on Google.