Made-to-Measure Roller Blinds

Fabric types — the decision that actually matters

Blockout stops light completely — right for bedrooms, nurseries and any room that needs proper darkness through a valley afternoon that doesn't cool off on its own. There's a genuine thermal benefit too: an insulating layer against both a trapped summer and a cold, damp winter night on a solid-wall farmhouse.

Sunscreen mesh (3%, 5% or 10% openness) cuts glare and UV while keeping the vineyard rows in view — the standard answer for the wide glass a new farmstead home is often built around. On the west- or north-facing side of the house, where the valley's reduced evening wind relief lets heat linger longest, a lower openness earns its keep; 3–5% is the usual view-preserving choice elsewhere. Worth knowing: sunscreen gives daytime privacy but reverses after dark, when lights on inside make the room visible from the farm road — worth pairing with curtains or a second roller in a bedroom.

Light-filtering / translucent fabric softens daylight and gives full privacy without a view — a middle ground for bathrooms or rooms facing a working farm road.

Options worth knowing about

• Double roller (day/night combo): blockout and sunscreen sharing one bracket — the practical answer for a bedroom that still wants the vineyard view during the day
• Chain, spring-assist or motorised control (chain systems get a wall-anchored tensioner as standard, for child safety)
• Cassette or pelmet valances to hide the tube, with the fascia colour-matched to your window frames or heritage timber trim
• Wide spans: a single blind runs to roughly 3m of fabric; beyond that we either split it with a central join or motorise linked blinds so the join disappears into the operation, not the view

Where rollers win, and where they don't

They're the right call for new farmstead glass, wine-estate living rooms and anywhere you want an easy-clean, budget-to-premium fabric that also wipes down easily after a dusty harvest week. On a century-old werf home's small deep-set sash, a timber venetian usually reads more at home — we'll say so plainly at the measure rather than sell the wrong product for the window.

Fitting rollers across the valley

Sunscreen rollers keep the vine-row view honest on the wide glass walls going up around Groot Drakenstein and Simonsvlei, go blockout for bedrooms on the older farmhouses of Simondium, and run a double roller on the family homes near the Klapmuts crossroads where a bedroom still wants light by day and full dark by night.