Up until this point in time you could get custom Roman shades that were crafted with materials that had images on them that you picked out yourself. Ostanding was doing excellent work selling the custom Roman shades and now they have added a new product to their custom line is the custom roller shade.
What is the difference between a custom roller shade and a custom Roman shade? Let’s take the time to explore the two products, their uses and their drawbacks.
Custom Roller Shades
The roller blind consists of a length of fabric that is rolled around a pole and fitted to the top of a window casing. When the fabric is pulled it unrolls so that the fabric covers the window opening. When you want to let light into the room the fabric is allowed to be rolled back onto the roller.
Typically, roller shades have been made out of stiffened polyester fabric that is mounted on a metal pole that has been cut to fit perfectly inside the window casing. They normally operate using a side chain or a spring mechanism. You can even find some cheaper versions of these shades that have a PVC pole instead of a metal one.
Ostanding is allowing their customers to upload images to have printed on the fabric that the shade is made from. Until now this was simply unheard of, but with this new way of customizing these shades, people will have the ability to have a different look and a different style in every room of their home and to be certain that they have unique shades unlike any shades owned by anyone else.
Venetian blinds are a form of window treatment that is made up of slats of material that are attached using one cord. The cord is used to lower the shades down or lift them up. The slats can be manipulated so that they allow varying amounts of light to enter into a room and they allow the light to enter at different angles. Vertical blinds work on the same principle as the Venetian blinds, only the vertical blinds are made from longer slats that hang from top to bottom, instead of from side to side in the window opening. Vertical blinds are typically used on larger windows and Venetian blinds are used on smaller windows.
Roller shades have been known throughout the history of the window blinds as being the less attractive and most cost efficient of all window blind treatments. The roller shades had a very simple design that could be made using cost effective materials, so more people had these types of blinds in their homes and businesses than any other type. They were inexpensive to buy and could be easily replaced when they were damaged.
Roller blinds were made from one piece of material that rolls up on a cylinder at the top of the window. There are no slats to be fastened together using a series of cords. There are fewer mechanical pieces than there are on the Venetian blinds or the vertical blinds, so the roller shades are less likely to become problematic or to cause complications.
Children can get the cords of Venetian blinds and vertical blinds, wrapped around their necks and be accidentally injured from this. Roller shades are much safer around children than the Venetian varieties are. The simplistic design of the roller blinds makes the possibility of a child wrapping the cord around their neck and being strangled slim to none.
Custom roller shades can be created to make a child’s room more personal and make all of the décor fit well together. Children grow quickly and they outgrow the images on their shades very quickly, so it is great that custom roller shades are easy to swap out and affordable.
Roller shades outlast Venetian blinds and vertical shades because there are fewer moving parts to the ensemble. With the Venetian blinds and the vertical shades, there are cords that lift the entire shade up to expose all of the window openings. There are cords that manipulate the individual slats so that a person can allow just the amount of light they desire to come into the room. With the roller shades you simply pull gently at the center of the fabric and you can pull the covering as far down on the window as you want it to be. If your shade is pulled down you can tug on it twice and the fabric will begin to roll back onto the bar at the top of the window. The mechanics of these shades are very easy to operate.
You can have roller shades made to fit windows or made to fit doors. You can have them made in the width you need and then have the fabric cut in the length you need it to be. Many people do not realize that you can get these items in the different custom sizes. The standard roller shades sold in department stores fit windows of pre-determined sizes, but you can have these pieces built to fit just about any size window or door you have. You may have them made narrow and then you can have them made wide. It is all determined by what size window you have.
You can install these shades by hanging the brackets in the window casing or you can hang the brackets outside the window casing. Most people have always assumed that these blinds could only be hung inside the window casing, but they work equally as well when they are hung above the window casing. When hung above the casing the brackets that hold the pole are designed to stick out slightly and this allows the shade to roll up and down without becoming hung on the frame of the window.
The real drawback with these shades is that they tend to roll up faster than you want them too. You tug for them to go up and they are liable to go up flying. It can also be very difficult to get the shades to come down to the exact place you wish for them to hang. Sometimes it seems that you work and work to get the main fabric to stop in the middle of the window, but it pulls past where you wished for it to be. Most of the time when you have had your shades for a little, while you will get used to operating them and will be able to make them stop where you want them to.
Another reason that roller shades become difficult to roll up and down is because as they start to get older, they start to be harder to control. As they age the roller mechanisms seem to work easier and when you give a gentle tug to make the shade roll up it will go farther and faster than you meant for it to. As your shade ages, you simply have to treat it with a little more care than you did when it was younger.
When dust and dirt build up on these shades, it causes them not to work properly. In order to prevent this from happening you need to clean your shades on a regular basis. When you are vacuuming your carpets, you can easily take a few moments and vacuum the fabric of your shades. This will help to prevent dirt and dust from building up on the fabric and on the rollers of the shades. Be sure that you vacuum the front side and the back side of the shade as dust builds up on both sides.
You can lightly clean spots on your roller shades using a soft cloth and warm water. Mix one gallon of warm water with about one quarter cup of regular dish detergent. Dab the rag into the soapy water and gently run it one the spot. Rub with the stain instead of across the stain because rubbing across the stain can cause the fabric to loosen and start to tear. You may clean these stains with the shades still hanging on the window. You will want to brace the back of the fabric with your free hand to give yourself enough leverage to rub the stain away.
About twice a year you may want to give your shades a thorough cleaning. Take the shades down and stretch them out completely. Lay them flat on a table or a flat surface. Mix warm water in a spray bottle with one teaspoon of ammonia. Spray this mixture all over the shade and allow the shade to remain on the table to dry for at least twenty four hours. Be careful that you do not saturate the fabric in this water and ammonia mixture. At first, the smell of the ammonia will be pungent, but after a few days it will dissipate and you will not notice it. This cleaner will help your shade to resist dirt until the next cleaning.
If you have a laminate or vinyl roller shade all you will need to do is mix dish soap with warm water and wipe the surface of the shade clean. You will want to dry the surface of the shade completely before allowing it to roll back up.
Venetian blinds require that you clean between each slat suing specialized tools. You must be very careful when cleaning Venetian blinds because if you damage the cord that controls the raising or lowering of the shade you will have to replace the entire item.
Custom Roman shades
It is believed that Roman shades were some of the first shades that were used. There were coverings developed to cover window openings of the homes around the Coliseum and it is believed that these were the first window shades. The coverings were designed to keep the dust from the streets and the games from entering the homes and covering all of the people’s personal belongings.
There were also shades that were designed to drop down and block some of the light from glaring in on the spectators. This provided shade that kept the spectators cool and it kept the sun from burning their skin.
Shades have been used since then to protect the belongings we have inside our homes and to keep dirt from entering our homes. The Roman shades may have been the prototype, but they were certainly not the last of this style of window treatment.
In the early days of shades, the fabrics were generally a solid color, and then there were some introduced that had a geometric design to them. Today since people have the ability to have custom designed fabrics created these items are unique works of art.
Roman shades are solid piece shades that cover the entire portion of the window opening. They are frequently used as decorative items to make the room more attractive, as well as items that are designed to block out all light.
These shades are customized by having the fabrics that are on them made differently. Ostanding will allow you to upload pictures and images from your collection and have those images place on the fabric your shade is made from. This makes the shades custom and it truly makes them one of kind pieces of art.
The shades are very easy to remove from their wooden frame so it is very easy to change shades when the seasons change or when a Holiday is coming up, or just because you want a different look in the room. The fact that the fabric is so easy to remove from the frame also makes the shades very easy to clean.
Roman shades usually fit outside the window casing and cover the entire portion of the window. For this reason, the Roman shades have often been the most popular style of shades to use on large windows, while smaller shades like the roller shades and the Venetian blinds, have been more popular on smaller window openings.
Custom Roman shades can be made with backings that block out one hundred percent of all natural light. These work perfect in offices that need to use the room occasionally to show films, and then use the room for the rest of the time as a meeting place. They also work very well to cover patio doors, so that sunlight is filtered out and does not heat the interior of the home, thus reducing the cost of heating and cooling.
The fabric of Roman shades is so easy to remove from their frames that you can simply take the fabric off of the frame and toss it in the washer on a gently cycle, and then replace the fabric and allow it to air dry. You do not want to dry this fabric in the dryer because you might cause it to shrink and then it would not fit your frame any longer.
If you have several fabrics for your Roman shades so that you can change decors it is suggested that you fold these items up with tissue paper between the layers. Once you have the item completely folded to make certain there is tissue paper on the outer portion of the piece. You can then store these in a drawer or even in a large zipper bag until you need them again. Avoid storing them in direct light as direct sunlight can cause the material to fade over a period of time.
Roman shades and roller shades are alike in the fact that the material that covers the expanse of the window opening is generally flat. These flat pieces of fabric are perfect for placing intricate images on so that the shade becomes the only window dressing you need. Some people like to dress these shades up a little more by adding a valance at the top of the window to give the window a different look. This is especially true in bedrooms where the valance can be used to tie the window treatment in with the bed coverings.
When you look at the cost involved with establishing custom Roman shades or custom roller shades, you must look at the cost of applying any other window dressing to the area. Curtains and draperies can cost far more than shades do, and they will have to be replaced more frequently because the fabrics of curtains and draperies do not hold their shape as long as the fabrics of the roller shades and the Roman shades. This is because the shades have frames keeping the fabric steady while curtains and draperies allow their weight to pull down on the treatments and cause them to tear over time.
You may not believe this, but at Ostanding, you can get custom window shades for starting at twenty dollars. You get to decide the style of shade, the size of the piece, the unique print you want on the fabric and every other aspect that will make your shades perform the way you need them to.Up until this point in time you could get custom Roman shades that were crafted with materials that had images on them that you picked out yourself. Ostanding was doing excellent work selling the custom Roman shades and now they have added a new product to their custom line is the custom roller shade.
What is the difference between a custom roller shade and a custom Roman shade? Let’s take the time to explore the two products, their uses and their drawbacks.
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