Every window is measured before it is quoted, so there are no prices here. The things that move the number are not a secret, though, and knowing them makes any quote — ours or anyone else’s — easier to read. Six things change what a motorized shade costs: the size of the opening, the fabric, whether the motor is battery, plug-in or hardwired, whether it is one shade or a run of them, the header, and whether anything has to happen to the wall before the shade goes on it.
We quote in your home, at the window, with the tape already out, because measuring is the only way to know. What follows is what we are thinking about while we do it.
1. The opening
Width matters more than height, and it matters non-linearly. A wide shade needs a larger tube to stay straight across the span without deflecting, and past a certain width it needs a different tube again. Two shades of the same fabric, one 36 inches wide and one 96, are not the same product scaled up.
Height matters for the fabric, and for whether the roll still fits behind the header at the top when it is fully up.
2. The fabric
Opacity, weave and width all move it. A wide-width fabric that can be railroaded across a big opening without a seam behaves differently from one that cannot. A textured woven behaves differently from a plain screen. And blackout is not automatically the most expensive rung — a fine solar screen at a low openness is a demanding weave in its own right. The five opacities.
3. Battery, plug-in or hardwired
These are three different jobs, not three prices for one job. Battery installs like a manual shade and needs no electrician. Plug-in needs an outlet in the right place. Hardwired needs an electrician and an open wall, so on a remodel it is nearly free to add and on a finished room it is a construction project. Battery versus hardwired, at more length.
4. One shade, or a run of them
A run of matched shades across an elevation works out to less each than one shade on its own — same setup, same trip, same fabric roll, one measure visit. It is one of the few places where doing more is genuinely cheaper per unit, and it is worth asking about if you were planning to do a room now and the rest later.
5. The header
An open roll adds nothing. A fascia adds a little. A cassette adds more. A built, painted wood cornice is millwork made for that window, and it is the one that changes the number most — and also the one that does the most for a bedroom. What each header actually does.
The four headers, in section
Cut through the head of the window and look sideways. Same shade every time; only the header changes.
6. What has to happen before the shade goes on
Mounting into a deep plaster reveal in a 1920s house, into a steel lintel, or into a window frame with almost no depth are all different jobs from mounting into modern drywall with a header behind it. So is a bay, an arch, or an opening that has settled out of square. None of these are problems — they are most of what we do — but they are the reason a number over the phone would be fiction.
Two things that quietly cost more later
Not asking about hardwiring during a remodel. While the walls are open, running power to a window head is a small job. Once the drywall is on, it is a construction project, and the honest answer becomes battery. If you are renovating and there is any chance you will want motors in that room one day, raise it now.
Doing one room and matching it later. Fabrics get revised and discontinued. Doing the whole floor at once works out to less each and it removes the year-four problem where a replacement does not match. If the budget genuinely only covers one room, that is fine — but choose a fabric with that in mind and let us write down what went in.
What does not change it
Asking questions. The consultation is free and there is no obligation — a designer who spends an hour in your house and leaves without an order has done the job properly if the answer was no.
What happens at the consultation · Book one
Questions people ask
Why are there no prices on this website?
Because every window is measured before it is quoted. Width, fabric, power, header and what the wall is made of all move the number, and measuring the opening is the only way to know it. The consultation is free and the quote is written before we leave.
Is it cheaper to do several windows at once?
Usually yes, taken one window at a time — one measure visit, one setup, one fabric roll and one install trip covers a run of matched shades. If you were planning to do one room now and the rest later, it is worth asking what the difference looks like before you decide.
Get a real number, at your window
Measured, designed and quoted in your home. No charge and no obligation.