Roman Shades

Roman Shades for Indianapolis, IN

Soft treatment for rooms with height to fill

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Quick Answer

What follows is what we'd tell you in person about this service, including which rooms it belongs in and which ones it doesn't. That second list is shorter but it saves more money.

  • Service: Roman Shades for Indianapolis homeowners
  • Service area: Indianapolis, IN and surrounding areas
    • Nothing in this trade is an urgent call-out, so here's the real timeline. Measures get scheduled promptly at a time that suits you. Custom fabrication then runs roughly two to five weeks. Installation is a morning or a day.
  • Insured and bonded
  • Serving Indianapolis, IN since 2008
Roman Shades Services

Expert Roman Shades for Indianapolis Homes

A Roman shade is a soft treatment that draws up into horizontal folds rather than rolling or stacking on slats, and it's the product that suits an Indianapolis pre war room better than almost anything else. Those rooms have high heads, deep casing and ceiling heights that make a hard treatment look mean. A lined Roman with a well chosen fold style fills that proportion in a way a roller shade doesn't attempt to.

There are four fold styles and they aren't interchangeable. Flat gives a crisp tailored face with no folds visible when lowered. Relaxed lets the bottom edge curve gently and reads casual. Hobbled holds permanent horizontal folds all the way down, which uses considerably more fabric and reads formal and full. London style adds gathering at each side. The style choice changes yardage, cost and how the shade sits when down, not just how it looks.

The trade off people forget is stack height. When a Roman is raised, the folds pile at the top of the opening and take glass with them, and a hobbled style stacks deeper than a flat one. On a tall pre war window that's usually fine because there's plenty of glass. On a short 1950s ranch opening it can swallow a quarter of the view, and we'll say so before you fall in love with a fabric.

When to Call

Signs You Need Roman Shades

If you notice any of these in your Indianapolis home, it is worth booking a measure. None of it is urgent, and none of it fixes itself either.

A hard treatment looks too plain in a formal room

The room has a high ceiling and deep casing to fill

You want fabric at the window without full drapery panels

An existing Roman has worn cord or ring tape

The window is a feature and deserves a soft treatment

You want pattern at the window in a small quantity

A dining or sitting room needs warmth that slats can't give

Drapery panels would block too much of a narrow opening

Our Process

How Indianapolis Window Treatments Handles Roman Shades

Every job follows the same six-step process. Transparent, thorough, and done right the first time.

1

Choose the fold style first

Fold style drives yardage and therefore cost, so it comes before fabric. We show flat, relaxed, hobbled and London against the room and against the ceiling height, because a style that reads elegant on a ten foot pre war wall can read fussy on an eight foot one. Hobbled uses the most fabric by a distance and that shows up in the quote rather than as a surprise later.

2

Lining and interlining decision

An unlined Roman glows and shows the fold structure through the face fabric, which is sometimes wanted and usually not. A standard lining evens it out and protects the face from ultraviolet. An interlining adds body and insulation and makes the folds hang heavier and more deliberately. On a west elevation lining is protection rather than decoration, because unlined face fabric on that exposure ages fast.

3

Measure and plan the stack

Three widths, three heights and a diagonal, then we calculate where the stack sits when the shade is fully raised and mark it against the glass. If that stack eats more of the window than you want, the answer is usually to mount outside the opening and higher, so the raised shade sits on the wall above the glass rather than in it. That decision has to be made now.

4

Mount type and hardware

Inside mount suits a deep pre war reveal and looks tailored. Outside mount above the opening preserves glass and covers an out of square condition. Either way the headboard has to be anchored into something real, and in a plaster and lath wall that means finding the timber. A Roman with lining and interlining is heavy and it hangs on that fixing for years.

5

Batch the whole room

Every Roman in one room goes on one order, from one dye lot, with one lining. Fabric is dyed in batches and a panel ordered later can read differently on the same wall, most visibly where side light rakes across it. Pattern repeat is also planned across the room at this point so the motif lands consistently rather than being cut wherever the roll happened to fall.

6

Install, train the folds

The shade goes up level, gets run through full travel, and then gets trained: folds are set by hand and steamed so they take the intended shape rather than the shape the packaging gave them. This is the step that separates a Roman that looks made to measure from one that looks like a bedsheet. We leave it dressed rather than fully raised.

Real Project Photos

Roman Shades in Indianapolis

Photographs from real roman shades jobs completed by our crew in Indianapolis and surrounding areas.

Custom shades measured and installed in Indianapolis
Scope of Work

What Roman Shades Includes

Every Indianapolis job is documented item by item. Here is what the crew covers.

Three widths and three heights taken at every opening, then a diagonal check so the shade hangs level

Mounting depth read at the top of the opening to see whether the stacked folds clear the trim on an inside mount

Stack height calculated from finished height, fold count and lining, then shown to you before anything is ordered

Outside mount height set above the opening wherever the stack would otherwise sit across the glass

Fold style specified room by room: flat, relaxed, hobbled or London

Fold count and fold depth written on the order so the bottom fold doesn't come up short

Lining specified per elevation, light filtering or room darkening or none, and stated in writing

Interlining added where the face fabric needs body or where the room wants weight and quiet

Pattern repeat measured so the motif lands at the same height on every shade in a room

Fabric run direction decided against the width, since a wide shade may need the goods turned

Ring rows and dowel pockets drawn to the fold spacing instead of a factory default

Lift chosen as cordless, a continuous cord loop with a tensioner, or a motor

Cord safety handled to ANSI/WCMA A100.1-2022, with cordless specified anywhere a child can reach

Mounting board wrapped in the face fabric where the board itself will show from the room

Return depth dimensioned on outside mounts so the sides close off against the wall

Brackets fastened into framing or into anchors rated for a lined shade's weight, not into bare drywall

Shades steamed on site so the creases from folding and shipping fall out of the cloth

Folds dressed by hand and the shade cycled a few times so every fold trains and breaks in the same place

Pricing

What Roman Shades Cost in Indianapolis

National category figures put stock shades at roughly $60 to $600 per window and custom-fabricated shades at roughly $250 to $2,600 per window. Those are national ranges published for a category, not a price for any address in Indianapolis, and Indianapolis Window Treatments quotes from a measure rather than an average. Romans usually sit in the upper part of that band, because what you're buying is yardage and sewing rather than cloth wrapped on a tube. Fabric moves the number first and it's sold by the yard, so a large pattern repeat adds cloth before anyone cuts. Lining and interlining come next. Then fold style, since a hobbled shade eats noticeably more fabric than a flat one of the same size. Two Marion County windows of identical size can land far apart on cloth alone.

By Product

How Roman Shades Differ by Product

Every product in this trade behaves differently in a room. Here is what that means for this work.

Flat Roman: One uninterrupted face of fabric when the shade is down, with folds appearing only as it rises. It shows a print or a weave better than any other style, and it's the one we specify in rooms that want a quiet, tailored line.

Relaxed Roman: Built without a dowel in the bottom fold, so the hem carries a soft curve instead of a straight line. It suits a kitchen window over a sink or a casual room, and it forgives a slightly unlevel opening better than a flat shade does.

Hobbled Roman: Permanent cascading folds stay stacked down the whole face whether the shade is up or down. It reads soft and traditional, it uses considerably more yardage, and it stacks much taller when raised. Plan the mount height around that.

London shade: Gathered at two points with soft tails falling at each side, usually hung as a stationary treatment or one that gets raised rarely. It's a decorative shade for a powder room, a stair landing or a window that never needs daily operation.

Dowel and ring construction: Rods sit in sewn pockets across the back and rings carry the lift cord. Pocket spacing sets fold depth, and drawing it against the finished height is how you avoid a runt fold at the bottom of an odd-height window.

Cotton sateen lining: The standard backing. It gives the shade body so folds hold their shape, it slows fading of the face fabric, and it puts the same neutral face toward the street from every window on an elevation.

Interlining: A soft flannel layer between face fabric and lining. It thickens the fold, quiets the room a little, adds real insulating bulk at a cold January window, and it turns a thin decorator fabric into a shade with weight.

Cordless lift: A spring-assisted mechanism raises and lowers the shade by hand with no loop hanging anywhere. It's the default in nurseries and any room a child uses, and on a lined Roman it wants correct spring sizing for the actual fabric weight.

Motorized Roman: A battery or hardwired motor lifts the shade on a remote or a schedule. It earns its keep on a shade above a stair, over a sink or on a tall window, and battery wands need changing about once a year.

Wrapped mounting board: The board the shade staples to, covered in the face fabric so it disappears when the shade is mounted outside the opening. Without it you see raw lumber above the shade from anywhere in the room.

Light Control

See What Each Fabric Does To The Light

Pick a fabric below and the window updates. It's a drawing rather than a photograph, so read it as a rough guide to what each family does in a Indianapolis room, and to what it doesn't do.

Fabric type

Sheer, 10 percent openness

Ten percent of the weave is open, so you keep the view and most of the daylight. Glare drops a little. After dark, once your lamps are on, someone outside can read shapes through it, which is why this belongs on a view window rather than a bedroom.

Openness factor is printed on the fabric card, so you can compare one line against another before you order anything.

Keeps the viewNot private after dark

Solar, 5 percent openness

The usual pick for a west window or a covered porch. You can still read the yard through it, glare comes down noticeably, and the fabric intercepts a good share of the sun before it reaches you at four in the afternoon.

It also cuts the UV landing on floors and furniture. NFRC puts UV at roughly 40 to 60 percent of fading damage, so this slows fading rather than stopping it.

View and glare controlSlows fading

Solar, 3 percent openness

A tighter weave. The room goes dimmer and the view drops back to an outline. Choose it where the sun is the problem and the view is second, which around here usually means a west wall in July. That's a common call on this side of Indianapolis.

Openness affects how much you see out, not how private you are. A 3 percent fabric still shows silhouettes at night.

View becomes an outlineStrong glare control

Solar, 1 percent openness

Close to a solid fabric with a little view left in it. This is the strongest glare control in the solar family.

The trade is that it darkens the room on a gray January day too. Indianapolis averages a January high near 36F and the light is flat, so think about how the room reads in both seasons before you commit.

Darkest solar optionDim on gray days

Light filtering

No view through it. Daylight comes through the face diffused, so the room stays bright without a hot spot across the television or the kitchen island. This is the default for living spaces.

It isn't private in reverse at night. With the lamps on and the sun down, silhouettes still show.

No view through itBright without the glare

Room darkening

A denser fabric, usually with a liner behind it. Most of the light coming through the face is gone.

Light still arrives around the edges on an inside mount, so a room darkening shade gives you a dim room rather than a dark one. If someone in the house sleeps during the day, say so at the measure and we'll scope it differently.

Dim, not darkEdges stay bright

Blackout

The fabric itself passes essentially no light. What you'll still see is the perimeter. Lutron publishes an inside-mount light gap of about 3/4 inch per side on its Roller 20 and 64 shades, along with a standard factory deduction of 1/16 inch per side, and shades over 120 inches tall or past a 4:1 height-to-width ratio get larger gaps than that.

So if you need a genuinely dark bedroom, that gap has to be dealt with on purpose, either with side channels or by going outside mount. We tell you which one your opening can carry while we're still standing in the room.

Dark facePerimeter needs a plan

Openness factor is a measured fabric spec, so you can compare it line to line. The category names are not measured. One maker's room darkening can behave like another maker's light filtering, which is why the sample books come to the measure and get opened in the room they're going in, at the hour that room has the problem.

Common Questions

Roman Shades FAQ

Questions we hear most often from Indianapolis homeowners considering roman shades.

Flat suits a modern or restrained room and uses the least fabric, and when lowered it reads almost like a fabric panel. Relaxed is the same construction with a gentle curve at the bottom edge and works well in a casual room. Hobbled keeps permanent horizontal folds down the whole face, uses substantially more fabric, and suits a formal pre war room with height to fill. London adds gathering at the sides for a dressier result. In an Indianapolis Foursquare or Victorian with a ten foot ceiling, hobbled usually looks right. In a bungalow, flat or relaxed.
More than people expect, and it depends on the style and the drop. The folds have to go somewhere, and on a long shade there are more of them. A hobbled shade stacks deeper than a flat one for the same drop. On a tall pre war window with a head well above eighty inches, losing the top portion barely registers. On a short 1950s ranch opening it can take a meaningful share of the glass. Where that's a problem, mounting outside and above the opening puts the stack on the wall instead.
With caution. There's no wood to warp, so the humidity swing that rules out hardwood shutters isn't the issue. What is the issue is that fabric absorbs cooking grease and steam, and a Roman is not something you take down and wash. Over a sink or beside a hob we'd usually recommend something wipeable and keep the Roman for the breakfast area. In a bathroom, an outside mount and a synthetic face fabric make it viable, and the winter condensation caution applies as it does to everything.
The cords and the ring tape they run through, on any shade operated daily. The cords abrade against the rings and eventually fray, and the tape stitching can pull. It's a repairable failure rather than a terminal one, and on a well made shade it's a long way out. Cordless and motorized Roman systems change the wear pattern and remove the cord hazard entirely, which matters in a room a child uses. Fabric itself usually outlasts the mechanism unless it's unlined on a hard exposure.
Up to a point. Width increases weight, and a wide Roman lifts unevenly if the cord runs aren't balanced properly. Past a certain span the practical answer is two shades side by side, which also lets you operate half the window. On a very wide opening the fabric may need seaming, and where it does, the seam placement should be planned deliberately, ideally symmetrical, rather than left to fall wherever the fabric width happens to end. We'd show you where a seam would land before you commit.
Yes, on a hard exposure, and lining is the main defense. NFRC guidance attributes roughly 40 to 60 percent of fading damage to ultraviolet, and an unlined face fabric on a west or south window takes the full dose. A standard lining absorbs much of it and protects the face, which is why we treat lining as a specification item rather than an upsell on those elevations. Over years the shade will still change, and a shade on the west wall of a room will diverge from one on the north wall of the same room.
Yes, and it's a good application on a tall or hard to reach opening, particularly a stair window on a half landing, which the pre-1940 Indianapolis stock is full of. The mechanism is a lift system rather than a roll, so the motor works differently from a roller and the fold training still has to be done by hand at install. All the usual motorized considerations apply: about a year of battery life on the common systems, travel limits set at install, and radio path surveyed in a masonry house.
Interlining is a soft layer sandwiched between the face fabric and the lining. It adds weight and body, so the folds hang deliberately rather than limply, it adds a real measure of insulation at the window, and it softens the light coming through. On a Zone 5A north facing pre war room it does genuine thermal work. It also costs more and makes the shade heavier, which increases the demand on the fixing and on the lift system. On a small sunny window it's usually unnecessary.
More than most people picture, and this is the part nobody asks about until it's hanging. A raised Roman gathers into a stack of folded cloth at the top, and that stack has real depth. A lined shade on a tall window can take up a foot or more of height when it's all the way up. On an inside mount, that stack sits over the top of the glass all day. The fix is knowing the number before you order, which is why we calculate it at the measure and show it to you.
Start with the room rather than the catalog. A flat Roman is the cleanest and shows a pattern best, so it goes in rooms that want a tailored line. A relaxed shade has a soft curve in the hem and reads casual, which suits kitchens and cottage-style rooms. Hobbled keeps its folds all the way down and looks traditional, but it uses more cloth and stacks taller. A London shade is decorative and mostly stationary. We bring samples of the same fabric made three ways so you can see it rather than imagine it.
Inside looks cleaner and shows off your trim, but it needs depth, and the stack still lands over your glass when the shade is up. Outside mount is what we reach for when the view matters, because the board can go well above the opening and the whole stack sits on wall instead of window. Outside also closes off the light gaps at the sides. In a Indianapolis room with a view worth keeping, outside mount is usually the right call even though it covers a little trim.
A room darkening or blackout lining stops light coming through the cloth, and that's genuinely most of the light. What it can't do is stop light coming around the shade. An inside-mounted Roman leaves a gap at each side, and light walks straight through it. For a bedroom that has to be dark, you want an outside mount with generous overlap, or a blackout roller with side channels underneath and the Roman on top for looks. We'd rather say that now than after you've paid for lining.
Yes, and in most houses you should. Cordless lift uses a spring mechanism you operate by grabbing the hembar, and motorized removes the question entirely. ANSI/WCMA A100.1-2022 is the product safety standard this trade works to, and inner cords that aren't compliant are treated as a substantial product hazard under 16 CFR 1120.3. On a heavy lined shade the spring has to be sized to the actual fabric weight, so tell us about the lining before the order goes in, not after.
Wider than you'd think and narrower than you'd like. Fabric shades get heavy fast, and past a certain width the cloth starts to sag between the rings and the lift gets hard to work. On a wide opening we'll usually split it into two shades on one board, matched at the pattern so they read as a pair. That also keeps each shade at a weight a person can raise without a fight. The exact limit depends on the fabric and the lining, which is why we decide it at the window.
Because you're buying cloth by the yard and then paying someone to sew it. A shade that takes four yards of a mid-priced fabric and a shade that takes seven yards of an imported weave aren't in the same conversation, and the second one hasn't even reached the sewing table yet. Pattern repeat adds yardage on top, since motifs have to land at the same height across a room. Fold style adds more. We figure yardage during the quote so the number isn't a surprise on the order.
They will if the shade was built and dressed properly. Fold spacing is set by the dowel pockets and ring rows, so it's baked into the construction rather than something that drifts. What does go wrong is a shade that was never trained: it arrives folded flat from the factory, gets hung, and the shipping creases live in the wrong places forever. We steam on site, then dress each fold by hand and cycle the shade so the cloth learns where it bends.
In a kitchen, yes, with sense about placement. Fabric near a cooktop takes on grease and cooking smells, so we keep Romans on the window over the sink and off the window beside the range. In a full bathroom with a shower running daily, fabric holds damp and the folds can hold it longer. A poly shutter or a moisture-tolerant shade does better in that room. A powder room with no shower is fine, and a London shade there looks terrific.
Vacuum the face with a brush attachment a few times a year, working down the folds rather than across them. Steam wrinkles out instead of pressing them. For anything worse, use a cleaner who handles fabric window treatments specifically and will take the shade down and rehang it. Do not put a lined Roman in a washing machine. Face fabric, lining and interlining shrink at different rates, and the shade comes out with a wavy hem that nothing fixes.
A roller is the working answer: it rolls onto a tube, takes almost no height when it's up, and handles glare and privacy cheaply. A Roman is the design answer, because folded cloth softens a room in a way a flat panel of fabric on a tube never does. Rollers win on tall windows where stack height would eat the view and in rooms where you raise and lower every day. Plenty of houses use both, with rollers on the working windows and Romans where the room is meant to feel finished.
Sometimes, and plan as if you can't. Decorator fabric runs in dye lots, and a bolt woven a year from now can sit slightly off the one your shades came from. On the same wall in daylight, that difference shows. If you know a second phase is coming, buy the yardage now even if the sewing waits. Either way we record the fabric name, the lot and the finished sizes on your file, which gives a reorder a real chance instead of a hope.
It's a soft flannel layer sewn between the face fabric and the lining, and it does three things at once that are hard to get any other way. It gives the fold depth and a rounded edge instead of a sharp crease. It quiets a hard-surfaced room. And it puts real bulk between the room and a cold window in January, which you feel standing near the glass. It also adds weight, so the lift and the brackets get sized for it.
Yes, and it's a common way to finish a room. The Roman does the working part, handling glare and privacy at the glass, while the panels add height and softness at the sides. Two things to check at the measure: the drapery rod needs enough projection to clear the raised stack of the Roman, and the shade's mounting board has to sit where the rod brackets won't fight it. Get the order wrong and the panels rub the shade every time they move.
Areas We Serve

Roman Shades Across Indianapolis

We measure and install in every one of these Indianapolis neighborhoods. Each has its own page with the build eras, window conditions and mounting notes for that section.

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Contact Information

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Our team prioritizes scheduled measures and service calls, and books in-home measures during business hours.

Office
1417 Commerce Avenue, Indianapolis, IN 46201
Hours
Mon-Fri 8a-6p
Service Area
Indianapolis, IN and Surrounding Areas

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Call us to set up an in-home measure, or to ask about a treatment that has stopped working. We will talk it through on the phone first.

Call (317) 854-7158
Service area

Serving Indianapolis and the surrounding area

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