Most of the glass on the ridge is doing double duty: letting the view in while trying to keep the worst of the afternoon out. Sunscreen fabric in the 3–5% openness range is the standard answer for that — a mesh weave that keeps the koppies visible from the couch while cutting glare and UV. Lower percentages block more heat and view; 3–5% is usually the sweet spot for view-preserving sun control on a big pane.
Blockout fabric earns its place in bedrooms and media rooms, especially on the morning-sun side of a terraced stand — total dark, plus a genuine thermal buffer against a north-facing room in summer. Where a bedroom also has a view worth keeping, a double roller (blockout and sunscreen on one bracket) lets the room do both jobs without a compromise.
Sunscreen mesh keeps the view. Blockout keeps the dark. A double roller doesn't make you choose.
Day-night blinds sit in the same family and solve the same argument differently: one fabric, banded in alternating sheer and solid stripes, so rolling the blind a few centimetres shifts the room from open view to filtered light to full privacy. They suit a street-facing lounge or a bathroom on the lower terrace, where the requirement changes several times a day and nobody wants two blinds on one window.
Wide spans are the one honest limitation — a single blind runs to roughly 3m of fabric before a join line becomes necessary, or the run gets motorised and linked instead. On a house with floor-to-ceiling glass walls, that's usually the more elegant answer anyway.
Practical notes
- Chain control comes with a child-safe tensioner as standard; spring-assist and motorised options available on every fabric.
- Cassette pelmets hide the tube and colour-match to the frame, for a cleaner line against contemporary joinery.
- Spans beyond ~3m are split or motorised and linked — planned with you at the quote stage, not after installation.
- Chain/spring for reachable windows; motorised for anything above a double-volume space or a stairwell void.
