Roman Shades

McCordsville Roman Shades From McCordsville Window Treatments

Soft folds for the openings that have real trim

Call (317) 999-5154Get Free Quote
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 McCordsville homeowners
  • Service area: McCordsville, IN and surrounding areas
    • The measure gets scheduled quickly. The build does not, because your fabric or shutter panel is cut to your numbers after you order. Two to five weeks is normal. Service calls skip that step entirely.
  • Insured and bonded
  • Serving McCordsville, IN since 2008
Roman Shades Services

Expert Roman Shades for McCordsville Homes

A Roman shade is fabric folding on itself, and it wants an opening with a face to sit against. That's rare in McCordsville and it's exactly why the 332 houses on the 1865 town plat are the best Roman work in the county. Those places on Main, Center, Hanna and McCord Street carry real wood jambs with narrow molded casing, 12 to 20 openings apiece, small rooms and very few windows the same size as each other. A soft treatment reads correctly there where a hard slat product does not. The other home for it is Geist Woods Estates, where an Estates plat here usually means wider frontages and more custom elevations.

Stack height is the cost, and it's paid at the top of the glass. A lined Roman on a 60 inch opening parks eight to twelve inches of folded fabric above the sill line when fully raised, and that fabric is sitting over the part of the view you probably wanted. Fold memory is the second issue: once a Roman has hung for a year the creases are permanent, so a shade shortened later never hangs cleanly. Fabric also runs in dye lots. Add two windows in 2027 to a room bought in 2026 and the new panels will be a shade off, which shows most on a wall the sun never touches.

When to Call

Signs You Need Roman Shades

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

A wide fabric shade dips along its bottom edge

Hard treatments feel wrong in a soft room

One shade hangs lower on the left side

Panels pile on the floor and collect dust

Cords hang beside a window a child uses

Existing fabric shades have faded along one edge

Folds hang crooked with creases from shipping

The fabric you loved is nearly discontinued

Cloth over the cooktop has gone dark and greasy

A window seat has nothing usable on it

Our Process

How McCordsville Window Treatments Handles Roman Shades

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

1

Fold style and count specified

2

Order placed, finished sizes confirmed

3

Ring spacing set to width

4

Pattern placement drawn per window

5

Extra yardage set aside

Real Project Photos

Roman Shades in McCordsville

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

Custom shades measured and installed in McCordsville
Scope of Work

What Roman Shades Includes

Every McCordsville 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 McCordsville

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 McCordsville, and McCordsville 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 Hancock 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 McCordsville 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 McCordsville homeowners considering roman shades.

Plan on eight to twelve inches of folded fabric at the top of a normal opening, more with a heavy lining and more again on a hobbled fold. That's glass you don't see out of, and on the shorter openings in the pre-1940 village houses it can be a fifth of the window. Two fixes both cost something. Mounting outside above the trim puts the stack on the wall instead of the glass, which needs a header with something solid behind it. Or you accept a lighter unlined fabric with a shallower stack and give up some of the room darkening.
Flat fold, almost always. A flat Roman is a clean rectangle with horizontal seams and it sits quietly inside the narrow molded casing those 1880s openings carry, without competing with it. A relaxed style, with the smile at the bottom, needs width to look intentional, and the openings on the narrow deep lots of the 1865 grid run tall rather than wide. Hobbled folds carry permanent horizontal ribs, which doubles the stack height and looks heavy in a small room with a plaster return. The exception is a wide front room window where a relaxed fold softens what's otherwise a lot of hard trim.
You can add them. Matching is the part nobody promises. Fabric is woven and dyed in lots, and a bolt run in 2027 against one run in 2026 lands a shade off in tone, sometimes in hand and occasionally in the repeat of a pattern. Side by side on the same wall you will see it. If a room is likely to grow, or if you are treating a house one floor at a time, order the yardage for the whole plan at once and let the fabricator hold it. Yardage is cheap compared with rebuying a room to make it match.
Not on its own. A blackout lining stops light through the fabric body but the shade still has to clear the opening to travel, so light comes down both sides, and on a Roman it also comes through the stitch lines where the fold battens are sewn in. In the sleeping rooms of a McCordsville two story, where 18 to 28 openings per house means the bedroom is usually a standard size, we get real darkness by mounting outside with two to three inches of overlap per side and running the shade well above the trim. Inside mount plus a blackout liner is a compromise, not a solution.
Only in a cordless or motorized lift. The industry product standard, ANSI/WCMA A100.1-2022, exists because of accessible cords, and the inner cord provisions at 16 CFR 1120.3 treat non compliant inner cords as a substantial product hazard. A traditional Roman with a rear cord ladder is the exact geometry that rule addresses. We specify cordless lift or a motor in any room a child sleeps or plays in and we don't offer the corded version there. That is a product level requirement, not a certification anyone in this trade holds.
Up to a point. Larger lot plats in the Geist orbit commonly carry two story great room glass and arched transoms, and a single Roman past about 96 inches wide gets heavy enough that the lift fights you and the fabric sags between battens. Above that we split it into two shades on a shared board, which is honest to look at and works. For a genuine two story glass wall we would rather put a motorized roller or cellular on the upper section and reserve the Roman for the lower opening where you can reach it and where the fabric is at eye level.
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 McCordsville 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 McCordsville

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

Related Services

Other Window Treatment Services in McCordsville

McCordsville Window Treatments handles the full scope of window treatment work. Explore our other services below.

Faux Wood Blinds in McCordsville

Composite slats for the rooms where real wood fails

Learn more →

Wood Blinds in McCordsville

Basswood where the casing is real and the room is dry

Learn more →

Vertical Blinds in McCordsville

Door walls handled without losing half your slider

Learn more →
Free In-Home Measure

Schedule Your Free In-Home Measure in McCordsville

Contact Information

Reach Us Directly

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
McCordsville, IN and Surrounding Areas

Ready to Book Your Measure?

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) 999-5154
Service area

Serving McCordsville and the surrounding area

Call NowGet Quote