Custom Blinds & Shades in Lexington, NC

That range of dates is the whole story. A Queen Anne from the 1890s and a ranch from 1955 sit a few blocks apart and need different things. The Queen Anne has tall, narrow sash with wavy original glass and elaborate casing around it. You do not want to hide that. A flat Roman shade mounted above the trim leaves the casing visible and still closes the room down at night.

The Craftsman bungalows that fill much of the district have wide front porches, which shade the front rooms all day, and unshaded sides and backs that get no such break. Treating the whole house the same way is the common mistake here. The front rooms can take a lighter fabric than the back ones, and specifying it that way saves money as well as looking better.

A mile north of downtown is Erlanger Mill Village, about eighty-five acres of worker housing built between 1913 and 1929 and laid out by the landscape architect Earle Sumner Draper. The cottages along Hulin, State, and West 11th are some of the best-preserved mill housing in the state. They are small and efficient, with tight rooms and often one window to a wall. Anything bulky makes the room feel smaller. A slim cellular or a light-filtering roller keeps the wall flat and the daylight coming in.

Uptown Lexington has spent years rebuilding its Main Street, and several upper floors above the storefronts are now living space. Those windows are large, old, commercial-scale units, and they are rarely square. They also look straight onto the street. A dual roller is usually right: a solar fabric for the day and a room-darkening one for the night, both on the same bracket.