F1. How do I mount a shade on a metal window or a vinyl-clad metal window? This is the question I get the most. Somehow, people are willing to drill multiple holes in wood-trimmed windows, but think they cannot touch a metal window trim. This is what I do. I first drill a very small pilot hole and then attach the board using a sheet metal screw. A French door shade up to 30" wide only requires one mounting screw at each end of the board. Wider windows require more screws. When you take the shade down, you can patch the holes using spackling or epoxy and a little dab of paint. I do NOT recommend using a magnetic mount for a shade. When you pull the shade up, you probably will pull the top of the shade down!

F2. How do I mount a Roman shade on an arched window? The original arched windows were called Palladian windows. A Palladian window is defined as a three-part window composed of a large, arched central section flanked by two narrower, shorter sections having square tops. This type of window was popular in the 17th and 18th Centuries. 

There are many ways to cover these windows. One option would be to leave the top of the center arch open. But how do you mount a shade across the span of glass? You can make an inside-mount rectangular shade. Purchase a very "strong" piece of 1x2, such as oak, ash or maple (not pine). If your window expanse is less than 36", just the board will suffice. If not, you may want to reinforce the board using a flat metal strip that you nail or screw onto the back or top of the board. You mount the board to the sides of the window using angle irons.

A second option is to cover the entire arched window with shade. You can see a photograph of an Eyebrow window Roman shade made by Ann Wiles of Round Rock Texas. She and her husband Mike made a mounting board that exactly fit the arch and attached the pulleys to that board. Of course, if the window had been a true Palladian window, the shade could have been made much longer.

A third option is to make a rectangular shade and mount it at the top of the window, covering the arch. Francine Shacter of Milton, Florida used this approach with her kitchen window.

There are now many variations on this window type. The drawing below is one variety. You also could call the center upper window an Eyebrow window.  You can see the set of pieced Roman shades that I made for a Show Home on these windows by clicking here. 

These were vinyl-clad metal windows and we were concerned about drilling a lot of holes in the trim. Even though it looks like you could easily attach the headrail to the mullion that separates the upper curved window from the center picture window, we used angle-irons at the sides of the window that support the main weight of the shade. One sheet-metal screw holds the center of the shade in place.

F3. How do I mount shades on windows in the corner of my room? It is not unusual to have two windows that "meet" at the corner of the room.  An example is shown here with a Decorative Rod Roman shade. You may be tempted to have the shades meet right at the corner of the walls. If you do this you will discover (just as I did) that your shades will not pull up properly. Although Roman shades don't "stick out" very far, they do expand as they are pulled up and the fabric folds onto itself. The first time I tried this, I had to move the mounting boards "out" about 1-1/2" before the shades no longer interfered with each other. You can see my first attempt by clicking here. 

F4. How do I mount shades on a multiple window? Often a window will be composed of several smaller windows. An example is shown below. 

The question is do you make one large shade to cover the entire window, or do you make separate shades, in this case, three shades. I prefer to use one large shade for the following reasons. You only have to raise and lower one shade, you generally require less hardware (that also means less expense) and you don't have problems with designs matching between multiple shades. One large shade can be mounted inside the overall window trim, as is shown at the right, or outside the trim. 

There are times when you will want to make multiple shades. The easiest case to handle is when the window is trimmed such that you can do an inside mount on each separate "inner" window. A beautiful example is shown below. This type of installation shows off the beautiful wood trim around the windows.

There are situations where you want one or two of the shades to be down, and another shade to be raised. This often happens when the smaller side windows open. You want as much privacy as possible, but still need ventilation. This was the case for the shades I made for a master bedroom. It is very difficult to have separate shades without having a light leak between the shades. This client knew that this would happen, but required separate shades. 

This is actually an outside mount, using one mounting board. Now the question is, where do you run the lift cords so that you can raise each shade separately? In this case, I used a projected mount and installed two sets of pulleys on the right-hand side of the shade. The center and right shades pull from the right, while the left shade pulls from the left. Notice that I placed an additional pulley at the end of the mounting board for the center shade. If the outside shade were wider, I would have placed another pulley (or screw eye) near the center of the outside shade so that the cords didn't droop down.

Contact Information:
Terrell Designs, owned by Terrell Sundermann 
5325 Sanford Cir. E. Englewood, Colorado 80113
Phone: (303) 758-0188  Email:

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