Roller Blinds, Cut To Birdhaven's Big Glass

Blockout Or Sunscreen — Or Both

Two fabric families cover most of what a Birdhaven window needs. Blockout stops light completely, which is what bedrooms, nurseries and media rooms want, and it doubles as a quiet insulating layer against the heat that close boundary walls tend to bounce back into west-facing rooms. Sunscreen fabric — usually rated at a 3%, 5% or 10% openness factor — cuts glare and UV while keeping the garden view; the lower the percentage, the more heat and glare it blocks and the less view comes through. It's a daytime privacy solution that reverses after dark, so we generally pair it with a second layer for bedrooms.

That's where a double roller earns its keep: blockout and sunscreen fabric on one bracket, controlled independently, so a bedroom with a good view doesn't have to choose between darkness and daylight. If what you're after is one fabric that does both jobs in a single pass, our day/night zebra blinds work on a different principle worth comparing before you decide.

Built For Open-Plan Rooms

Cassette or pelmet valances hide the tube completely and the fascia can be colour-matched to your frames — the detail that keeps a run of roller blinds looking intentional across an open-plan living and dining space rather than bolted on afterward. A single blind runs to roughly 3m of fabric width before it needs a central join line; beyond that, we either plan the join into the design or motorise linked blinds to run as one. Either way, it's a conversation for the measure, not a guess from a size chart.

Control: Chain, Spring Or Motorised

Chain control comes with a child-safe tensioner as standard, anchoring the loop taut to the wall. Spring-assist suits smaller windows that get opened often. For tall glass, hard-to-reach openings or a run of several blinds you'd rather operate from one remote or app, motorisation is worth asking about — tell us about your rooms and we'll give you an honest read on whether it's worth the spend for your specific windows.

Where They Win, Where They Don't

Rollers are the right call for modern glazing, apartments and clusters, tight budgets through to premium fabrics, and easy day-to-day cleaning. They're less at home on very wide unbroken spans, where a join line becomes unavoidable, or on heritage-proportioned sash windows — the kind still standing in pockets of Houghton Estate and Saxonwold — where a timber venetian usually sits more comfortably with the window's original proportions.