Blackout Window Shades

Fabric opacity, liners and side channels each change how dark a room gets. This guide covers what they do and which combination suits a bedroom, a nursery or a media room.

Want to reduce glare on your television when watching a movie? Need custom room-darkening blinds for your bedroom so you can sleep more soundly? Hunter Douglas offers a range of light-blocking shades for the right amount of room darkness. But with so many options, choosing between them can be challenging. Roller or cellular? Liner or no liner? Corded or automated? Here is how to decide.

Best Blackout Shades

While every Hunter Douglas window treatment provides a measure of light control, some room-darkening shades offer more benefits than others. A key consideration is fabric type and color. Sheer fabrics typically soften and filter sunlight, semi-opaque fabrics provide privacy while letting in some sunlight and opaque fabrics almost completely block all light. We say "almost" because these fabrics darken a room but do not entirely eliminate light—so they are not considered blackout shades.

Light-Blocking Features

You can also help block natural light by mounting window treatments outside the window frame, so the treatment overlaps the wall rather than sitting inside the opening. Adding drapery or side panels over the top closes the gaps at the edges, which is where most of the light in a "dark" room is actually coming from. Wide openings and overhead glass are the hardest cases: a sliding glass door needs a treatment that traverses sideways and still covers the frame, and a skylight lets in light from directly above, where a standard shade has nothing to seal against.

Light-Blocking Liners

Another option for blocking light is a room-darkening liner, which is available on many of our window shades. We offer two types of liners: an attached liner and an Independent Operable Liner.

The attached liner is sewn directly into the shade fabric and is a good option for rooms where the amount of natural light in a room is secondary to room darkening, such as kids’ rooms.

The Independent Operable Liner provides more flexibility. As its name suggests, it operates independently from the shade, so you can enjoy light-blocking when you want it in addition to varying levels of light throughout the day.

Blackout Roller Shades

Roller shades combine a sleek, modern design with the ability to create just the right amount of light and privacy while minimizing glare. To enjoy nearly complete darkness any time of day, opt for a room-darkening fabric (a nice alternative to a blackout shade).

For some versatility, Silhouette^® Duolite^® is two shades in one, providing all the benefits of a traditional Silhouette shading but with a room-darkening roller shade nestled behind it.

Blackout Cellular Shades

If you want the added benefit of reducing heat in the summer or cold in the winter, a honeycomb shade has a cellular design that adds a layer of insulation at the window. For added energy savings, Duette Honeycomb Shades combine that insulation with a room-darkening fabric, so a single shade handles both the heat and the light.

For room-darkening window treatments in your bedroom, nursery or media room, opt for the Duette LightLock system, with its unique U-shaped side channels that overlap the front and back of the shades. The secret to unparalleled room darkening lies within the patent-pending side channel design—which features rows of specially shaped micro-ridges, optimized to absorb or deflect nearly all incoming light while preventing the light from seeping into the room.

Room-Darkening Blinds

Blinds darken a room by tilting their slats closed, but even fully closed they let light through in two places: the gaps where the slats overlap, and the route holes the lift cords pass through. A blind on its own will not darken a room the way a shade with an opaque fabric will.

If you want a blind, EverWood^® Faux Wood Blinds are the ones to look at. The slats are solid and tilt fully closed, and because they are a faux wood they will not warp in a bathroom or a kitchen where humidity would damage real wood. Mount them outside the window frame so they overlap the wall, add drapery or side panels at the edges, and a room will get genuinely dim.

For a bedroom or a media room, where you want the room properly dark, start with the room-darkening range and treat a blind as the second layer rather than the first.

Cordless and Automated Shades

Cordless shades have no dangling lift cord, which makes them the safer choice in a room where children or pets spend time, and they give a room-darkening shade a cleaner line at the window. Automated shades are cordless too, with the added benefit that you can control them from a remote or an app on your phone or tablet, and schedule them to close before the sun reaches the screen.