Blockout Blinds in Real Australian Homes: What They Look Like Installed

A blockout blind is the one product everybody thinks they understand and most people order slightly wrong. The fabric is the easy part — it's opaque, full stop. The result in the room depends on the fit, the colour and what you put around it. These are real homes with our blockout blinds in them, fitted by the people who live there, with the decisions behind each.

Harries and Emily's kids' room in Bondi, blockout roller down for a day sleep. Recess fit, so there's a fine line of light each side — the trade for a clean look with nothing on the wall.

What "blockout" actually means

Our blockout roller fabrics are coated so that no light passes through the cloth. Not a little, none. Hold a swatch up to the sun and you'll see the outline of your hand and nothing else. That means every bit of light you see in a room with a blockout blind down is coming around the fabric — over the top of the roll, or down the sides — and that's what the examples below are really about. (For the full product rundown — fabrics, fit, options — see the roller blinds buying guide.)

Blockout is also the fabric that does the most for temperature. It reflects summer sun back out through the glass before it warms the room, and it slows heat leaving through the glass on a winter night. Our summer heat guide goes into that side of it.

Example 1: the kids' room, recess fit

The same room from the bed. The blind sits inside the window frame; the light at the edges is what a recess fit leaves.

A light grey blockout roller, recess fitted inside the window opening. This is the most common way people order a blockout and it's a good result: dark enough for a day sleep, neat, nothing on the wall. The bright lines you can see down the left edge and across the top are the compromise — a recess-fit blind is a little narrower than the opening, and the roll sits below the top of the frame. A face fit with a pelmet would close both. For a kids' room that also has to be a bright play room by day, the recess fit is a fair call.

Colour note: a pale blockout is exactly as opaque as a black one, but pale fabric glows a little where light hits its edges, so it reads brighter in the room than a charcoal would. If darkness were the only goal, go darker.

Example 2: the black blockout, bedroom

A black blockout roller, rolled up, over a bedroom window at a customer's home. Up, it's a slim dark bar above the glass; down, it's about as dark as a single blind gets.

The opposite colour choice. A black blockout roller on a small bedroom window, photographed rolled up so you can see how little space the roll takes. Same fabric family as the grey one above, but when it's down the dark colour means the edges don't glow, so the room reads darker for the same fit. Against white walls the black bar is a deliberate accent that picks up the window frame.

If you're choosing between two colours for a room that has to be dark, this is the tie-breaker: go darker. Order both as free samples, tape them to the window at midday, and look at the edges rather than the middle.

Example 3: blockout behind a sheer

At the Abercrombie house: a double roller behind a sheer. The blockout layer does the dark; the sheer does the daytime look.

The living-room version. You don't notice the blockout by day because it's rolled up behind a sheer curtain; at night it comes down and the room is private and dark. This is the setup in most of the new homes we photograph, and it's the answer when you want a blockout's performance without a blockout's look. Our guide on layering sheers over rollers covers the clearances and the install order.

And when it's a wide window rather than a single one, the usual move is to split it into two or three blinds side by side, face fitted so the fabrics overlap the openings and meet each other. One wide roller is heavy and its chain is a chore; three narrower ones on one remote — a bank like this is the strongest case for a motorised roller — drop together at the press of a button.

Where blockout fabric goes beyond rollers

The same coated blockout fabrics run through a few other products, which matters if a roller isn't the right shape for the window:

A charcoal panel glide on a bedroom slider — our render on a real room. Panels in a blockout fabric do the roller's job on an opening a roller can't handle.

Getting the same result at your place

Common questions