Blinds · For sliders & wide openings
Vertical blinds, for the wide stuff
Sliding doors and openings too wide for anything that stacks upward. Unfashionable, frequently the right answer, and much improved since you last looked.
Why vertical
Because the door has to open.
A slider is the one opening where most of this catalogue struggles. Anything that lifts has to stack somewhere, and on an eight-foot-wide door that stack is either enormous or in the way of the handle. Verticals draw sideways, clear the door completely and tilt for light — which is why they have survived every attempt to make them unfashionable.
They have also improved considerably. The rattling vinyl slats of twenty years ago are no longer the only option: fabric vanes, faux-wood verticals and vertical cellular alternatives all exist now and none of them sound like an office in 1994. If you rejected verticals on the basis of a memory, it is worth looking again.
Options
Four ways to cover a slider.
We will bring samples of whichever of these suits the room, not all four.
- Fabric vanesSoft, quiet, available in a wide colour range and much closer to a curtain in feel. The usual recommendation for a living room slider.
- Faux wood verticalsWider slats with a wood look. Suits a house that already has faux-wood blinds elsewhere and wants the door to match.
- Vertical cellularA honeycomb structure that draws sideways — insulating like a cellular shade, and the best-performing option on a large draughty slider.
- Panel trackBroad flat panels that slide past each other like a shoji screen. The most contemporary answer to a wide opening and the one that looks least like a blind.
Also for wide openings
Other ways to handle a slider.
Not every wide opening wants a vertical.
Questions
Asked and answered.
Do vertical blinds still look dated?
The old vinyl ones do, and we would not put them in your living room either. Fabric vanes, vertical cellulars and panel tracks all read as current. Judge them from the samples rather than from the memory of an office you worked in.
What happens where the door handle is?
The vanes stack to one side, and we set the stack on the opposite side from the handle so you are not fighting them every time you go out. Which side that is gets decided at the measure — it is exactly the kind of detail that goes wrong when somebody quotes off a drawing.
Can a slider be covered with something other than verticals?
Yes, and often better. A panel track, wide roller or drapery on a traverse rod can all work well. What matters is that the treatment clears the moving panel and the handle. We will look at the door and tell you what genuinely fits.
Free & no-obligation
Roll credits on bare windows.
Tell us a little about your project and we'll call to set up your free in-home consultation — usually within one business day. Prefer to talk now? Call (610) 883-9063.
- Up to 30% off current promotions applied to your quote
- Professional measuring included
- Lifetime service warranty on every install
Windows still bare? The consultation is free and the coffee's on you.