Roller & day-night blinds

A roller blind is the cleanest window treatment there is: a made-to-measure fabric panel wound onto an aluminium tube, operated by a chain or a motor. There is nothing to gather, nothing to stack, nothing to dust between. Everything interesting about a roller blind is in the fabric.

Which is why we spend the measure talking about the room rather than the hardware. A north-facing Bryanston living room with four metres of glass wants a completely different fabric from the bedroom behind it — even though the blind itself is the same product.

Blockout

A dense, coated fabric that stops light through the cloth entirely. This is what goes in main bedrooms, nurseries, media rooms and any room where somebody works nights. It also does real work on heat: a blockout roller on a west-facing window is a noticeable difference by five o'clock in summer.

One honest caveat — "blockout" describes the fabric, not the installation. Light will always find the gap between the blind and the reveal unless you deal with it. Where you want genuine darkness rather than nearly-dark, we fit side channels, or we oversize the blind and mount it outside the reveal. We will tell you at the measure which one your window needs.

Sunscreen

An open-weave mesh, usually between 3% and 10% openness. It cuts glare and a large slice of the solar heat while you can still see through it — the lawn, the pool, the trees all stay there. Tighter weaves (3%) give more privacy and more heat rejection; opener weaves (10%) keep more of the view.

This is the default for Bryanston living rooms and any glass facing north or west. Worth knowing: sunscreen gives you daytime privacy but reverses after dark, when the lights are on inside. If the room is overlooked at night, pair it with a blockout on a double bracket.

Day-night blinds

Also called zebra or vision blinds. Alternating bands of sheer and solid fabric run over each other on a single tube — line the bands up and you get a view, offset them and you get privacy and shade. It is one blind doing two jobs, and it is the usual answer for a bedroom or a dining room that cannot decide.

Where the room genuinely needs both at full strength, a true double roller is better: a sunscreen and a blockout on one double bracket, each doing its own job properly.

Practical notes

• Double brackets pair a sunscreen and a blockout on one window — the most-fitted combination we do.
• Chain controls are fitted with a wall-anchored child-safety tensioner as standard.
• A cassette pelmet hides the tube and the brackets for a cleaner finish, and keeps dust off the roll.
• Very wide glass is either split into two blinds or motorised and linked so they run together.
• Fabric direction matters: a reverse roll keeps the fabric off a deep sill, a standard roll sits closer to the glass.