Blackout Shades

Blackout Shades in and Around Avon, IN

Dark enough to sleep, honest about the edges

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Quick Answer

If you've narrowed things down to this product, these answers should confirm the choice or steer you elsewhere. Either outcome is fine. Ordering the wrong thing in custom sizes is the expensive mistake.

  • Service: Blackout Shades for Avon homeowners
  • Service area: Avon, 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 Avon, IN since 2008
Blackout Shades Services

Expert Blackout Shades for Avon Homes

Blackout is a bedroom product, and Avon has a great deal of bedroom to cover. Oaks of Avon is the clearest example: every one of 35 recent sales was a two story, homes average 3,105 finished square feet, and those 1998 to 2004 plans put four or five bedrooms upstairs. Brookstone's current Pulte plans run four and five bedrooms across 2,426 to 3,300 square feet. Add shift workers and small children and the request is the same on both streets. What we install is a blackout fabric with an opaque backing, and where it matters, side channels down each side of the opening.

Here's the disclosure that should come before the deposit: no inside mount shade is completely dark. Lutron publishes a light gap of 3/4 inch per side on its Roller 20/64, with a factory deduction of 1/16 inch per side on top of that, so light comes around the edges no matter how opaque the fabric is. Side channels with a light blocking pocket close most of it and add visible hardware to the trim. An outside mount with two to three inches of overlap per side does much the same and covers your casing. Expect a dark room rather than a sealed one.

When to Call

Signs You Need Blackout Shades

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

Blinds close and the room still never goes dark

Light comes over the top of a roller

Sun reaches the projector screen by two in the afternoon

Morning sun bounces off the sill into the room

Two stripes of daylight sit beside the shade

Curtains do nothing whatsoever at the edges

Night shift sleep keeps getting cut short

You added a window and the fabric doesn't match

A street lamp lands across the bed

A home office monitor washes out every afternoon

Our Process

How Avon Window Treatments Handles Blackout Shades

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

1

Side channels and pocket specified

2

Cordless or motorized lift set

3

Brackets and channels into structure

4

Roll diameter checked against depth

5

Care and cleaning walked through

Real Project Photos

Blackout Shades in Avon

Photographs from real blackout shades jobs completed by our crew in Avon and surrounding areas.

Custom shades measured and installed in AvonPlantation shutters fitted to a Avon windowCellular shades in a Avon living room
Scope of Work

What Blackout Shades Includes

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

The actual goal settled first, since a room dark enough to sleep in and a genuinely dark room need different products

Every opening measured and checked on the diagonal, because a shade hanging out of level leaks down one side

Outside light sources logged at the measure: a street lamp, a security light, headlights sweeping a bend

Wall surface above and beside the opening checked for somewhere flat and solid to land channels

Outside mount specified wherever real darkness is the goal, with overlap written in inches on every side

Side channels specified where the room has to be dark and the wall around the opening will take them

A light-blocking pocket or a closed cassette specified at the top so daylight can't come over the roller

Factory deduction disclosed up front, since Lutron publishes 1/16 inch per side and that width has to go somewhere

Inside-mount light gap stated in writing, using Lutron's published 3/4 inch per side on Roller 20/64

Tall or narrow units flagged, because shades past 120 inches or a 4:1 height-to-width ratio get larger gaps

The bottom of the shade addressed on its own: hembar position, sill depth and light bouncing off the sill

Fabric named honestly as room darkening or blackout on the order, because the two aren't the same thing

Seam construction checked on any fabric going into a room that has to be dark, so needle holes don't become pinholes of light

Wall and ceiling color discussed, since a bright white room bounces whatever daylight does get past the shade

Cordless or motorized lift specified in nurseries and kids' rooms, to ANSI/WCMA A100.1-2022

Layering planned where one product can't finish the job, such as a blackout roller under lined panels

Channels fastened plumb down both sides, since a bowed track opens a gap of its own

The finished shade run through full travel and looked at with the room lights off, in daylight, before we leave

Pricing

What Blackout Shades Cost in Avon

National 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 for a category and not a quote for a bedroom in Avon. Blackout has a wrinkle the other categories don't: the fabric is rarely the expensive part. Getting a room actually dark means an outside mount with real overlap, side channels down both sides and a pocket or closed cassette at the top, and that hardware can cost as much as the shade it surrounds. A bare blackout roller is cheap and it will disappoint you. Avon Window Treatments prices the whole assembly for Hendricks County rooms, because pricing the fabric alone is how customers end up unhappy.

By Product

How Blackout Shades Differ by Product

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

Blackout roller shade: A dense coated fabric on a tube, the workhorse of this category. The cloth itself passes essentially no light. Everything about whether the room goes dark comes down to what you put around the edges of it, not the fabric you picked.

Blackout cellular shade: A honeycomb with a blackout layer inside the cells, which adds an insulating air pocket the roller doesn't have. It's the better choice on a cold bedroom window in January, and it pairs with side tracks the same way a roller does.

Side channels: Aluminum or vinyl tracks running down both sides that capture the fabric edge. This is the single component that turns a dark shade into a dark room. They're visible, they add width to the outside of the opening, and they need a flat mounting surface.

Light-blocking pocket: A three-sided box mounted above the shade that closes off the top and the upper corners. Light comes over a roller as easily as around it, and a pocket is what shuts that path without relying on the fabric wrapping the tube.

Closed cassette: A headrail enclosing the roller on all sides with a fabric slot at the bottom. It handles the top gap the way a pocket does while looking like finished hardware rather than a built element, and it suits a wall with no depth above.

Outside mount with overlap: Mounting past the trim on all four sides, so the fabric covers more than the opening. The cheapest real improvement in this category. Two or three inches of overlap per side does more for darkness than upgrading the fabric ever will.

Room darkening fabric: A fabric that cuts most light without being opaque, usually with a soft glow through the cloth. It's enough for a guest room or a den, it costs less, and calling it blackout is the most common mislabeling in this trade.

Dual shade on one bracket: A solar screen and a blackout shade on a single bracket set, operated separately. You keep the view and glare control during the day and drop the blackout at night, which is how a bedroom that's also a sitting room gets solved.

Motorized blackout: A motor lets a channeled shade run its full travel without anyone fighting a track, and it puts a dark room on a schedule. On battery, expect to change or recharge roughly once a year, which is the cost nobody mentions at the sale.

Blackout lined drapery over a shade: Panels handle the softness and the sides while the shade handles the glass. The combination reaches a level of darkness neither one gets to alone, and it's often the better-looking answer in a primary bedroom.

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 Avon 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

Blackout Shades FAQ

Questions we hear most often from Avon homeowners considering blackout shades.

No, and anybody promising that hasn't measured one. The fabric can be genuinely opaque, but the shade has to be narrower than the opening to travel, so light enters at both sides, at the top where the fabric leaves the tube, and along the bottom rail. The published Lutron figure of 3/4 inch per side on an inside mount roller is the honest starting point. With side channels and a light blocking pocket at the head, an Avon bedroom gets dark enough that you can't read by it at noon. Somebody who needs true darkness for daytime sleep should plan on channels from the start.
Like two slim aluminum tracks running down the sides of the opening, roughly three quarters of an inch wide, in white or a matched color. They mount to the trim or into the return, and the shade edge runs inside them so light can't pass. People notice them for a week and then stop seeing them. What you should know is that they commit the shade to that opening forever, since the channels are fastened and the shade is cut to fit between them. In the 1998 to 2004 stock at Oaks of Avon there's applied casing to land them on, which makes the install cleaner.
Outside mount, if darkness is the goal and the trim allows it. Those homes were built inside a six year window from 1998 to 2004, so header heights repeat from room to room and there's usually wall above the opening to mount into. An outside mount with two to three inches of overlap on each side plus a deep return blocks far more light than any inside mount can. The cost is looks: the shade covers your casing rather than sitting inside it, and it projects further into the room. In a bedroom nobody photographs, that's a trade most people take.
They make the space between the shade and the glass hotter, which is a real effect and a small one at the room scale. An opaque fabric absorbs solar energy and re radiates part of it back into the room, so on a west facing wall in July, when the Avon average high is 85.2 degrees, a dark blackout fabric warms up noticeably by late afternoon. A light colored or reflective backing helps, and that's what we specify on west and south rooms. If cooling is the main goal rather than darkness, an exterior shade stops the heat before it reaches the glass at all.
Roller with channels for the darkest result, cellular if winter comfort matters as much as sleep. Brookstone's plans run 2,426 to 3,300 square feet on lots with no established canopy, so those bedrooms take full sun with nothing to break it. A blackout roller with side channels is the tightest light seal we can build. A room darkening cellular gives you the trapped air in the cells, which DOE and Oak Ridge National Laboratory testing associates with reduced heating energy, but it leaks more light at the sides. Some households buy both on different windows in the same room.
Partly, and you should know the limits before we quote it. Arched and palladian heads were a builder signature in Avon's 1998 to 2004 stock and show up across Oaks of Avon. A shade can only cover the rectangular part below the spring line. The arch itself takes a fixed fabric panel cut to the curve, which doesn't move and doesn't seal at the edges. The alternative that actually works is an outside mounted blackout shade hung above the entire assembly, arch included, on a wall bracket. It hides the shape you paid the builder for, which is the honest tradeoff.
Because the fabric was never the problem. A blackout cloth passes essentially no light through itself, which is the easy part. What leaks is the perimeter. An inside-mounted shade has to be narrower than the opening to move at all, so there's a gap down each side, plus a path over the top of the roller and a gap at the bottom where the hembar sits off the sill. Nothing about the fabric grade changes that geometry. Only the mount and the hardware around it do.
Room darkening fabric cuts most of the light but still glows softly when the sun hits it. Blackout fabric is opaque, and you can hold it to a lamp and see nothing. The difference matters because the words get used interchangeably in advertising and they aren't interchangeable at all. For a guest room or a den, room darkening is usually plenty and it costs less. For a nursery at 6am in June, room darkening will not do what you're hoping.
Not on its own. Lutron publishes an inside-mount light gap of 3/4 inch per side on Roller 20/64, plus a standard factory deduction of 1/16 inch per side, and every manufacturer has a version of the same numbers. That gap is what lets the shade travel without dragging. You can close it with side channels fastened inside the opening, and that combination does work. An inside mount with no channels, in a bedroom, is going to leave two vertical stripes of daylight on your wall.
They're tracks, usually aluminum, that run the height of the window on both sides and capture the edge of the fabric so light can't get past. Visually they read as two slim vertical pieces of hardware, and they come in finishes that can match a headrail or blend with trim. They add width outside the opening on an outside mount, and they need a flat, solid surface to fasten to. In a room that has to be dark, they earn their appearance.
It's a three-sided enclosure mounted above the shade that closes off the top and both upper corners. People concentrate on the sides and forget that a roller shade has an open path over the tube, where daylight comes down behind the fabric and lands on the wall. A pocket or a fully closed cassette shuts that path. Combined with channels down the sides and an overlapping outside mount, that's the assembly that actually produces a dark room in Avon.
More than the default. Mounting past the trim on all four sides is the cheapest real improvement available in this category, and a couple of inches per side does more for darkness than moving up a fabric grade. Above the opening you want enough height for the roller and the pocket. Below, the shade should run past the sill rather than stopping at it. We dimension the overlap at the measure and write it on the order rather than leaving it to a factory standard.
Yes, and it surprises people. A hembar hangs a fraction off the sill so it can move, and low morning sun coming in at an angle finds that gap and reflects off the sill into the room. It's a smaller leak than the sides but it's real. Running the shade past the sill on an outside mount handles it. A bottom channel or a hembar seal handles it in the rooms where nothing less will do. We check it standing in the room, not on paper.
Cordless or motorized, always, since ANSI/WCMA A100.1-2022 is the safety standard this trade builds to and non-compliant inner cords are a substantial product hazard under 16 CFR 1120.3. For darkness, a blackout cellular or roller mounted outside the opening with generous overlap, side channels down both sides and a pocket at the top. And a conversation about the wall color, because a white ceiling will happily bounce whatever daylight finds a way in and undo half of what you paid for.
The full assembly, and layering on top of it. Shift sleep means the sun is at its strongest while you're trying to be unconscious, which is the hardest version of this problem. We'd specify a blackout shade mounted outside the opening with channels and a top pocket, then blackout lined panels over it to catch anything at the perimeter and to soften the room. It's also worth checking the door: a bright hallway under a bedroom door defeats a perfect window every time.
It helps, and a blackout cellular helps more. Stopping direct sun at the glass keeps that energy from landing on your floor and furniture, which is real on a west-facing bedroom in July when the average high around here sits at 85.2F. A cellular adds a trapped air pocket on top of that. What we won't tell you is that a shade cools a room the way a mechanical system does. It reduces the load on a hot afternoon. It doesn't replace anything.
A little, and less than the marketing suggests. A dense fabric plus a cellular air pocket takes some edge off high-frequency sound, so traffic hiss softens slightly. Low-frequency noise walks straight through. If noise is the actual complaint, layering blackout lined drapery over the shade does noticeably more than the shade alone, because you've added mass and a soft surface across a big area. We'd rather set that expectation than sell a shade on a promise it can't keep.
Yes, with two fabrics. A dual shade puts a solar screen and a blackout shade on one bracket set, each operating on its own. Through the day you run the screen, which cuts glare and heat while keeping the view. At night the blackout comes down. It costs more than a single shade and it takes more depth at the opening, so we check mounting depth carefully. In a bedroom that doubles as a sitting room, it's usually worth it.
It does, more than most people expect. Any daylight that gets past the shade lands somewhere, and a white ceiling and pale walls bounce it around the room until the whole space reads bright. The same leak in a room with deep walls barely registers. We're not going to tell you to repaint a nursery. But if you're choosing paint anyway and darkness is the goal, going darker on the ceiling does measurable work for free.
The fabric can be, and the shade can't be, and that's worth understanding before you order. Top-down bottom-up needs a movable middle rail, and that rail has to run in the same channels as everything else, which means a horizontal line where light gets through. In a bedroom that needs actual darkness, a fixed-top blackout shade is the right product and the top-down feature belongs on a different window in the house.
Areas We Serve

Blackout Shades Across Avon

We measure and install in every one of these Avon 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
Avon, 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 Avon and the surrounding area

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