Décor and furnishings establish the style of a room:
- Clean lines and a minimalist color palette convey a modern sensibility.
- Traditional furniture and lots of natural wood grain communicate formality and a sense of history.
- Bright colors and quirky designs give an eclectic vibe.
- And long lines, light colors, and minimal decoration communicate a Scandinavian sensibility.
But where do you start when you’re trying to convey these distinct styles? A great place to begin is your window treatments. That’s because window treatments are arguably the most prominent features in the room and offer major square footage for conveying color, line, and style. And compared to furniture and other pieces of décor, window treatments are certainly not the most expensive design elements in a room.
While Bali makes blinds, shades, shutters, and drapery—all of which can help you achieve the styles we talked about above—the easiest way to express a particular style is by choosing a shade. Shades have the power to really change the look of a room without becoming the center of attention. This is important to most people because they generally want their furniture and other furnishings to tell the style story.
Let’s look at how to use shades to achieve our design goals.
What Are Window Shades?
Shades are simply a piece of fabric mounted on a roller or headrail. Shades such as roller shades and solar shades are rolled up or unfurled to control light and privacy. Shades mounted on a headrail (such as Roman shades, natural shades, and cellular shades) stack and unstack as they’re raised and lowered. The layered shade has its own unique design that consists of two sheets of sheer fabric with alternating opaque bands that can be moved to control light and privacy. And sheer shades are really just soft blinds—they imitate traditional blinds using only fabrics.
It is important to note that all shades provide insulation against heat and cold, but cellular shades are the most effective shade in this respect. Cellular shades trap air in their honeycomb-shaped structure, and that serves as an insulating barrier against heat and cold. A tailored Roman shade with an added liner also offers outstanding protection against heat and cold.
Every shade can be configured to work in a wide range of settings. Fabrics, colors, and designs can all be adjusted to make a shade work on nearly any window. Bali’s huge range of shades makes finding a shade that works for you easy.
Types of Window Shades Offered by Bali Blinds
Cellular Shades (Honeycomb Shades)
Cellular shades are champions in the game of energy efficiency. Their ability to insulate against heat and cold comes from their three-dimensional design. Cellular shades have a honeycomb-shaped design that results in long chambers that hold air. This provides a barrier that reduces heat loss through the window. Cellular shades can even help to dampen sound. A double-cell fabric is also available for added insulation. The result is a more comfortable room and savings on your heating and cooling costs.
But cellular shades do more than just insulate. These simple but elegant shades come in a wide array of fabrics ranging from light filtering to blackout. Blackout cellular shades are an excellent option for bedrooms and entertainment rooms—or any room where you need darkness on demand, no matter the time of day. And the light-filtering cellular shades are among the most popular shades in the world. Their way of turning sunlight into a pleasant and gentle light is prized by designers and homeowners.
Roman Shades (Classic and Tailored)
Roman shades are one of the simplest and most popular of all window treatments. Built on a time-tested design and offering an attractive, three-dimensional quality, Roman shades can work in nearly any room in your home, from living rooms and kitchens to home offices and bedrooms. They can also be ordered as smart shades for the ultimate in convenience.
Bali offers two categories of Roman shades. Classic Roman shades present a simple but elegant style in a range of neutral colors. They’re highly versatile, but are most popular in living rooms, dining, rooms, sunrooms, and home offices.
Tailored Roman shades are luxurious. They can be made from hundreds of different premium fabrics using structured pleats and other embellishments. Tailored Roman shades can be coordinated with drapery for breathtaking results.
Solar Shades and Exterior Solar Shades
Solar Shades are built to handle the sun. They are made of durable, fade-resistant fabrics that can stand up to heat and UV rays. They’re the ideal choice for the sunniest rooms in your home. In fact, solar shades can turn a sunny room that is unusable during the hottest times of the day into a comfortable place to live, work, and relax. And solar shades do all this while still allowing some view to the outdoors.
How do solar shades work? The secret is in the woven fabric. The fabric protects against the sun but also allows some view to the outdoors—so you don’t feel like you’re trapped in a cave on a beautiful sunny day. Choose from solar fabrics with low openness levels (that do not allow much of a view but keep more sunlight out of the room) and fabrics with higher openness levels (that allow much more view to the outdoors but let more sunshine into the room).
One interesting way to use solar shades is on the outside of your home. Bali Exterior Solar Shades are installed over the windows on the outside of your home. This blocks harsh sunlight before it gets into your home. For the very sunniest of rooms, this can be transformative—an impossibly hot room turned into a comfortable place to live.
No matter where you use your solar shades—indoors or outdoors—you’ll help reduce your cooling costs. And in addition to their functionality, solar shades are attractive. For designers looking to achieve a modern look for a room, sleek solar shades are a top choice, even in rooms that don’t get much sun. Solar shades work quite well on large windows, too. Their simplicity and attractive fabric collection make them a great way to add a minimalist touch to any room.
Sheer Shades
Sheer shades aren’t just shades—they’re soft blinds. Their all-fabric design is based on traditional blinds. A sheer shade consists of two layers of sheer fabric with fabric vanes woven between them. The result is a window treatment that looks like a combination of a shade and a set of blinds. Like traditional blinds, sheer shades are controlled by adjusting the angle of the vanes to increase or decrease light and privacy. Sheer shades are most often used in living rooms, dining rooms, and bedrooms. In bedrooms, sheer shades are often combined with drapery to increase light control and privacy.
Sheer shades are prized for their gentle light control. The two layers of sheer fabric soften whatever light the vanes allow through the shade. Few shades are as beautiful and elegant as a sheer shade.
Layered Shades
Layered shades are in a class of their own. These innovative window treatments utilize a unique dual roller system to create a very modern, very sleek shade that can add a clean, fresh style to a room. Layered shades have two layers of fabric consisting of sheer or clear bands of fabric alternating with opaque bands of fabric. When the bands are aligned, you get light passing through the sheer or clear bands. But when the opaque bands cover the sheer or clear bands, you have light control and privacy.
That might sound a bit complex, but when you see a layered shade in action, you’ll marvel at its elegant simplicity. The look of a layered shade is simple, too, and its bold stripes of color present an attractive design element that contrasts well with curved shapes and swaths of intricate patterns. If you’re decorating a kitchen, a home office, or a living room, a layered shade might be a bold, fresh choice.
Natural Shades
Every Bali Natural Shade is a unique work of art. That’s because each beautiful shade is a little different—the variation in the hand-harvested wood, bamboo, jute, and grass creates visual interest and natural patterns that delight the eye.
But natural shades aren’t just about beauty. Made from naturally grown materials, they are a truly sustainable window treatment. They’re also highly durable, incredibly functional shades. Natural shades can be combined with liners to make them great insulators against heat and cold and to improve light control. They are popular in Bohemian or rustic interiors, but are even more at home in modern design schemes—the natural textures contrast nicely with the clean lines and neutral colors of a modern room.
Roller Shades
When people think of shades, they often picture the simple, proven roller shade design. But Bali offers more than just simple roller shades—you’ll find extraordinary colors and patterns in the Bali Roller Shade collection that will dazzle in any room. Roller shade fabrics are available in elegant light-filtering fabrics as well as blackout fabrics for bedrooms and entertainment rooms. These simple shades are a top choice for minimalist interiors and modern design schemes. They also work well in multipurpose spaces.
The simplicity of the roller design makes roller shades a popular option. Cordless roller shades are so smooth and quiet that there are few window treatments that rival their ease and sophistication. And roller shades are also available as smart shades—if you’ve never used a motorized roller shade before, you need to experience it to believe it.
Pleated Shades
Beautiful and interesting fabrics are what makes Bali Pleated Shades special. Their single-layer, pleated design allows for a wide range of fabrics. You’ll find colors and patterns in the Bali Pleated Shade fabric collection that you’ll find nowhere else.
Pleated shades are at home on nearly any window. Their simplicity adds a touch of lightness to living rooms, kitchens, dining rooms, and home offices. Combined with drapery, they can be an option for bedrooms, as well. They can also be motorized to become smart shades, or they can be configured as cordless shades. Pleated shades can do it all.
Sliding Panels
One of the sleekest window treatments available today is the sliding panel. Sliding panels are wide fabric panels mounted on a sliding track. They can be used in most situations where one might use vertical blinds. Sliding panels excel in covering wide windows, sliding doors, and can even be used as room dividers.
Sliding panels come in a huge variety of fabrics. Many of these fabrics can be matched with fabrics from other Bali collections. For example, you can match a set of sliding panels to the solar shades in your room for a sophisticated, finished look. And if you have a huge window or a room with a wide, open floor plan, sliding panels can be a great solution.
Customization Options for Bali Window Shades
Finding the right shades for your home can be fun. That’s because the diverse shade offerings from Bali give you a whole world of choices. You can bring your most daring ideas to life—or find just the right shades to suit your existing décor. When you’re looking at furniture, floor coverings, and other furnishings, you’ll probably find dozens of options. But when you’re looking at window treatments, particularly shades, you’ll enjoy a menu of hundreds and hundreds of colors and fabrics. You really can let your imagination go wild.
Beyond the aesthetic choices, you’ll find choices for customizing your light control. Choose from sheer fabrics, room-darkening fabrics, and blackout fabrics as well as liners that add additional light control and privacy. You’ll also find cordless and motorized options—if you’ve never tried a Bali Smart Shade, you need to experience it to believe the incredible ease and convenience. And there are even eco-friendly materials, particularly in the Bali Solar Shade category, that can make you feel good about reducing your environmental impact.
A Note on Privacy at Night
An important consideration to make when selecting a shade is how well the shade provides privacy at night. A sheer shade, of course, provides very little privacy. Solar shades, with their open weave, are not ideal for bedrooms. Light-filtering shades provide a bit more privacy but are not a good choice for most bedrooms and bathrooms.
Room darkening shades are a popular choice for nearly any type of room—they provide excellent light control and a great deal of privacy. But if you’re seeking complete privacy—and complete light control—select a blackout shade. Blackout shades are available in the Bali Roller Shade and Bali Cellular Shade collections. You can also order a Roman shade with a blackout liner for outstanding light control and privacy.
Benefits of Bali Window Shades
A bare window is not very useful. The uncovered panes of glass transfer heat in or out of the room, lowering the comfort level of your home and wasting energy. And that bare window affords you no privacy or protection from light and glare. Add a shade and you transform the room. You’ll spend less on heating and cooling and enjoy more comfort. Plus, if you choose your shades wisely, their style and beauty can set the tone for the entire room.
Bali offers you all that plus unmatched durability. You can expect to get years of reliable performance from your shades. The fabrics, hardware, and mechanisms are built to stand the test of time. You get cordless shades that can be lifted and lowered with ease or smart shades with quiet motors and easy-to-use controls.
Built for DIY Installation
Bali window shades are built with the DIYer in mind. You get beautiful shades that are designed for easy installation. There’s a shade for every window in your home, and a limited lifetime warranty and premium-quality materials will give you confidence in your investment.
Bali makes choosing and installing your own window treatments a breeze. You’ll find the full range of window treatments, from blinds and shades to shutters and drapery. If you’re looking for the perfect shade or a set of shutters that’ll last a century, Bali is your source. Visit one of our retail partners now or order swatches.
