Most people arriving at this job want to know two things: how long it takes, and which part goes wrong. The drilling is the short half of the afternoon. The part that goes wrong usually happened weeks earlier, when somebody chose a lift mechanism without knowing how deep the window was.
So the useful way to install window shades runs backwards from the way it is usually described. A shade does not hang off your window. It hangs off a headrail, and the headrail is the part that has to fit. Change the mechanism and you change the rail, which changes the window you need, without touching the fabric, the colour or the size. Get that wrong and the shade ends up on the wall above the window rather than inside it, which changes how the whole window reads as surely as changing the fabric would.
The number that decides everything is the depth you did not measure
Five of the listings we have checked publish a minimum depth for fitting a shade inside the window opening, and they do not agree: 2 1/2 in, 2 3/4 in, 2 7/8 in, 3 in, 3 5/8 in. What matters more than the spread is that two of those listings publish two figures each, for the same fabric, on the same page.
The two listings
Minimum inside mount depth: 2.5 in
Minimum inside mount depth: 2.875 in
Read off the Two Pages listings themselves, 2026-09-12. None of these numbers is ours: where a percentage appears, it is the manufacturer claiming it.
Take the roman shade Two Pages sells as Liz Linen. Fitted inside the opening it needs 2 1/2 in of depth as a manual shade and 4 in as a motorised one, and the page gives the reason without commenting on it: the aluminium headrail is 1 3/4 in deep in manual form and 2 in deep motorised. The zebra shade from the same merchant does it in another direction, asking 2 7/8 in to sit recessed in the opening and 3 1/2 in to sit flush with it.
Minimum window depth for an inside mount
Neutral Curtains
3 5/8 in
Tavi Roller Shades
Two Pages
3 in
Loma Venetian Blinds Cord Lift
Two Pages
2 7/8 in recessed
3 1/2 in flush
Brio Light Filtering Zebra Shade Cordless
Half Price Drapes
2 3/4 in
Crisp White French Linen Roman Shade
Two Pages
2 1/2 in manual
4 in motorised
Liz Linen Roman Shade Cordless
Measure the reveal before choosing a fabric. A shallow frame rules options out faster than a budget does.
Read off the Half Price Drapes, Neutral Curtains, Two Pages listings themselves, 2026-08-22. None of these numbers is ours: where a percentage appears, it is the manufacturer claiming it.
So the depth a shade requires is not a property of your house. It is a variable you set at the order, and you can set it badly. On a reveal that measures 3 in clear, that roman shade fits as a manual and does not fit as a motorised one. Nothing about the window changed. An inch and a half of rail did.
That is not an abstract loss. A shade that cannot go inside the opening goes on the wall above it, where it covers the frame instead of framing it: the window stops reading as a recess with a blind in it and becomes a clean rectangle of fabric, wider and taller than the glass. Some rooms are better for that. It remains a decision about how the room looks, taken by way of a motorised lift, and better taken before the tape comes out.
Measure the clear depth, not the frame
Those margins are measured in eighths of an inch. Your measuring method has to be that precise, and the usual one is not.
A measure worth keeping
depth first, lift second
Measure the depth before you choose the lift
Measure the usable depth of the reveal first, then pick between a manual, corded or motorised lift. The lift is what the depth has to swallow.
A shade hangs off a headrail, and the headrail is the part that has to fit inside the reveal. Adding a motor, a tube or a cassette makes that rail deeper, so the same fabric on the same window can fit as a manual shade and not fit as a motorised one. Decide the lift after you know the depth and you choose freely; decide it first and the tape measure overrules you after the order is placed.
Measurable geometry rather than a product claim. Hold it against your own window before you trust it.
Depth is usually taken at the outer edge of the frame, where the opening is deepest and the tape sits flat. The depth that decides whether a rail fits is elsewhere: the clear depth in front of the glass, measured to the nearest thing that sticks out. A casement handle, a crank, a glazing bead, a trickle vent, a sash that opens inwards. Any of them takes a fraction out of the only measurement that counts, and none shows up in the figure you wrote down.
Worse, the fault hides. A rail that clears a window handle by a finger’s width with the window shut will meet that handle the first time the window is opened, which for a bedroom might be the evening of the day you fitted it. The usual repair is to pack the brackets forward on spacers, and the shade then sits proud of the frame with a line of daylight down each side that nobody chose.
The common misstep
| The habit | What it costs | Instead |
|---|---|---|
| Measuring the reveal depth at the edge of the frame The tape goes into the opening at the outer edge of the frame, where the reveal is deepest, and that figure is the one written down and ordered against. | The depth that matters is the clear depth in front of the glass, and it is eaten by whatever sits inside the opening: a crank, a window handle, a bead, a sash that opens inwards, a trickle vent. A shade ordered against the edge measurement fits the frame and then fouls the handle, which shows up only when the window is opened. | Measure the clear depth from the face of the glass or from the nearest obstruction, not from the outer edge, and take the smallest of the three readings across the opening. If the clear depth is short, the decision is not a smaller shade: it is an outside mount. |
Common failure modes and their fix. No product data on this card.
Take three readings across the opening, keep the smallest, and measure to the obstruction rather than to the frame; the full sequence, width and drop included, is in our guide to measuring, hanging and installing. If that number comes in short, the answer is not a slimmer shade. It is an outside mount, decided on purpose rather than discovered on a Saturday.
What is actually moving decides what has to fit
Every shade here does one of four things, and what it does sets what it needs.
In the room
Minimum inside mount depth: 3.0 in
Catalogue photo from Two Pages, retrieved 2026-09-12.
What moves, family by family
Louvers that tilt
- Two Pages Loma Venetian Blinds Cord Lift
tilting aluminium slats, cord lift, impact-resistant cord lock
Aluminium slats, headrail and bottom rail, baked-on enamel finish · 3 in minimum inside-mount depth · the factory takes 1/4 in off the width you order
Fabric that rolls
- Two Pages Brio Light Filtering Zebra Shade Cordless
dual-layer banded fabric rolling on a tube; cordless lift; alignment of sheer and opaque stripes sets the light level
2 7/8 in minimum inside-mount depth - Neutral Curtains Tavi Roller Shades
rolls onto a tube, corded lift
100% Polyester · 3 5/8 in minimum inside-mount depth · the factory takes 3/8 in off the width you order
Fabric that folds and stacks
- Two Pages Liz Linen Roman Shade Cordless
fabric that folds and stacks on an aluminium headrail; cordless lift as listed
90% polyester, 10% linen blend · 2 1/2 in minimum inside-mount depth - Neutral Curtains Custom Bamboo Shades & Blinds – Alum. Headrail
woven wood panel raised on an aluminium headrail; minimum stack height 7 in when fully raised
woven wood: bamboo, ramie, jute depending on the collection chosen · no minimum depth published · the factory takes 3/8 in off the width you order · stacks minimum 7 in when fully raised - Half Price Drapes Crisp White French Linen Roman Shade
fabric that folds and stacks; relaxed or flat fold, continuous-loop cord lift
100% Linen · 2 3/4 in minimum inside-mount depth
Nothing at all
- Half Price Drapes Millstone Grey Solid Cotton Room Darkening Tie-Up Window Shade
no lift mechanism: a 4 in pole pocket slides onto a rod, two 70 in fabric ties gather the shade by hand
100% Cotton (solid cotton twill), off-white lining
Read off the Half Price Drapes, Neutral Curtains, Two Pages listings themselves, 2026-08-22. None of these numbers is ours: where a percentage appears, it is the manufacturer claiming it.
Slats tilt: the aluminium venetian blind from Two Pages runs on a cord lift with an impact-resistant cord lock and asks for 3 in of depth inside the opening. Fabric rolls: the zebra shade and the Tavi roller from Neutral Curtains wind onto a tube, so rail depth is the number to check on any roller shade. Fabric folds and stacks: the Liz Linen and the French linen roman shade from Half Price Drapes gather upwards into a band of cloth, and the woven wood shade from Neutral Curtains does the same on an aluminium headrail, publishing one number nobody else prints: a minimum stack height of 7 in when it is fully raised.
In the room
Listed at $68.99. starting price, identical on all 8 colourways, no compare_at. Size entered in the configurator.
Catalogue photo from Two Pages, retrieved 2026-08-22.
That 7 in is the most useful figure here. A shade that rolls disappears into its cassette. A shade that folds does not disappear at all: it parks a band of fabric at the top of the opening, and inside the reveal that band sits on your glass every day of the year, which is the recurring question of roman shades. Mounted above the frame, the same band sits on the wall and the window keeps its full height. The mechanism decides how much window you keep when the shade is up, and only one brand here prints the figure.
Then there is the fourth case, which is not a mechanism at all. Half Price Drapes sells a tie-up window shade whose page states plainly that it is stationary and not designed to be raised and lowered daily. It has no lift: a 4 in pole pocket slides onto a rod, and two fabric ties 70 in long gather the cloth by hand. No reveal depth, no brackets, no drilling, because it is a curtain that has agreed to be called a shade. Its one fitting constraint is the rod, at 1 1/2 in maximum.
Open the box before you open the drill case
Fitting hardware comes with the shade, and what comes with it varies more than anyone expects. The variation tells you which installation the merchant had in mind.
What ships, and what you buy separately
| Two Pages Liz Linen Roman Shade Cordless | included: header and installation hardware |
| Two Pages Brio Light Filtering Zebra Shade Cordless | included: 2 brackets, 2 screws, 2 nails, 1 shade |
| Two Pages Loma Venetian Blinds Cord Lift | included: 2 brackets, 4 screws, 4 nails, 1 blind |
| Neutral Curtains Tavi Roller Shades | included: installation hardware included |
| Neutral Curtains Custom Bamboo Shades & Blinds – Alum. Headrail | included: installation hardware included (screws for drywall into a stud or solid wood) |
| Half Price Drapes Millstone Grey Solid Cotton Room Darkening Tie-Up Window Shade | included: shade only; rod, rings and clips are not needed and not supplied |
Read off the Half Price Drapes, Neutral Curtains, Two Pages listings themselves, 2026-08-22. None of these numbers is ours: where a percentage appears, it is the manufacturer claiming it.
Two listings give the contents piece by piece: the venetian blind ships with 2 brackets, 4 screws and 4 nails, the zebra shade with 2 brackets, 2 screws and 2 nails. Both also list the tools you are expected to own, which is a polite way of saying they are not in the box. Three others say only “installation hardware included” and leave it there. Only the woven wood shade from Neutral Curtains says anything useful about the wall: its screws are described for drywall, into a stud or into solid wood.
Two brackets is a shade carried at its two ends. On a narrow window that is plenty. On a wide one a long rail bows in the middle, and a bowed rail hangs the shade slightly low at its centre. Under a low sun that dip reads as a crooked shade even when both brackets are level, because the eye takes the hem for the horizontal, not the rail. Count the brackets against the width before you assume the box has thought about your window.
Nails are a message too. Nothing nailed into plasterboard holds. Nails are for timber, which tells you where the merchant expects those brackets to land: in the frame, not in the wall.
Worth doing
Hold the whole shade up before you drill anything
Offer the shade up into the opening, brackets loose in place, and work the window: swing the casement, turn the handle, lift the sash. Mark the bracket holes only once nothing fouls.
Brackets are marked against an empty frame and then live with a window that moves. A handle that clears the rail by a finger's width when the window is shut can hit it the moment the window opens, and the discovery always arrives after the screws are in. Two minutes holding the shade in the opening is the cheapest test in the whole job.
Label every shade before you open the last box
Write the room and the window on the headrail with a piece of tape as each shade comes out of its packaging, and keep the packing note with the pile.
Made-to-measure shades are cut to one window each, and two windows in the same wall can differ by half an inch without looking any different. Unbox six identical rolls, mix two of them, and the only way back is to hold each one up to each opening. Merchants ask for a room label at the order for exactly this reason; the label only helps if it survives the unboxing.
A practical step, not a product claim. Nothing here depends on which brand you buy.
Check it at the source
Two Pages · Liz Linen Roman Shade Cordless
Listed from $59.99
What that covers: listed floor price, identical on all 38 colourways, no compare_at. Made-to-measure: size, lift, lining and motorisation are billed through the configurator.
Build your size at Two PagesThis is an affiliate link: a commission may come back to us, you pay nothing extra for it, and Two Pages charges the same either way. The number above was read on 2026-09-12, so treat the live listing as the figure that counts. That picture belongs to Two Pages and was taken from the catalogue on 2026-08-22.
Where you install a shade decides what you screw into
This is where two jobs that look identical stop being the same job.
Fit inside the opening and the brackets go into the frame: the timber is right there, the fixing is short, and what sits behind the plaster never comes up. Fit outside and the shade becomes a curtain rod. The wall carries it, plasterboard on its own carries almost nothing, and what does hold a fixing is worked through in putting up a curtain rod. A shade is lighter than a lined curtain, but it is lifted and dropped by hand every day, and that repeated pull works a poor fixing loose.
In the room
Mechanism: woven wood panel raised on an aluminium headrail; minimum stack height 7 in when fully raised
Catalogue photo from Neutral Curtains, retrieved 2026-09-12.
Another way to do it
Hang a wall of shades on one line, not window by window
Where a room has several windows of different heights on the same wall, set every headrail on one continuous line above the tallest opening rather than tight to each frame.
Fitted individually, the rails step up and down the wall and the eye reads a row of mismatched holes. Carried on one line, the shades read as a single horizontal band and the wall looks deliberate, even when the windows underneath are not. It costs a few inches of extra drop on the shorter windows and nothing else, and it turns the most common awkward wall in an older house into the calmest one.
This is a layout idea rather than a purchase. The panels you have will do it.
Worth saying clearly, because an outside mount is treated as the consolation prize: it is usually the better looking of the two. It covers a tired frame, it gives a clean rectangle, and it is the only one that gets near a dark room, since it can overlap the opening on all four sides. The shallow reveal that forced your hand may have improved the room.
Check it at the source
Neutral Curtains · Tavi Roller Shades
Listed from $42.99
What that covers: listed starting price (11 colourways, all at 42.99, no compare_at). Made to measure: width and height are chosen in the page's size selectors, so this figure is a floor.
Build your size at Neutral CurtainsThis is an affiliate link: a commission may come back to us, you pay nothing extra for it, and Neutral Curtains charges the same either way. The number above was read on 2026-09-12, so treat the live listing as the figure that counts. The image above comes from the Neutral Curtains listing, retrieved 2026-09-02.
What the listings still will not tell you
All seven of these pages leave something out. Four of them leave out something that changes how you fit the shade.
What these listings do not tell you
- Two Pages Liz Linen Roman Shade Cordless: weight gsm, opacity, stack height in
- Two Pages Brio Light Filtering Zebra Shade Cordless: composition, weight gsm, width deduction in, size envelope
- Two Pages Loma Venetian Blinds Cord Lift: opacity, size envelope
- Neutral Curtains Tavi Roller Shades: weight gsm
- Neutral Curtains Custom Bamboo Shades & Blinds – Alum. Headrail: weight gsm, opacity, min inside mount depth in
- Half Price Drapes Crisp White French Linen Roman Shade: weight gsm, size envelope, care cleaning method
- Half Price Drapes Millstone Grey Solid Cotton Room Darkening Tie-Up Window Shade: weight gsm
Missing from the product page, so missing here too. A brand that prints the number is doing you a favour worth counting.
Read off the Half Price Drapes, Neutral Curtains, Two Pages listings themselves, 2026-08-22. None of these numbers is ours: where a percentage appears, it is the manufacturer claiming it.
The zebra shade publishes no material and no ordering deduction, though it does publish something rarer: the finished fabric ends up 1 1/2 in narrower than the width you order, because the width you order is the width of the tube and its cassette. On a 60 in window that is an inch and a half of glass that stays uncovered by design, which in a bedroom is a stripe of daylight down one edge at dawn.
The roman shade that anchors this page publishes no stack height, so the band of fabric it will park at the top of your window is a number you cannot have before it arrives. Fitted inside the reveal, that band looks like lost window: on a short opening it takes a visible slice of the glass and makes the window read smaller all day. The Tavi roller contradicts itself outright, asking 3 5/8 in of depth in its specifications block and answering 2 inches in its own FAQ further down the same page. We are not resolving that for them: plan against the larger number, and put the question to the merchant before ordering.
None of this is dishonest. It is an unregulated category where each merchant publishes what it happens to measure, and the buyer assembles the specification from several pages written by different people.
The one question to ask before you order
Measure the clear depth at the narrowest point of the opening, then ask the listing what depth it requires for the exact option you are about to tick, not for the product. Manual and motorised are two different depths on the same page, recessed and flush are two more, and the only one that matters is the one attached to the box that will actually arrive.
Questions people ask before they drill
How deep does a window need to be to fit a shade inside the frame?
It depends entirely on the shade, and the published figures run from 2 1/2 in to 3 5/8 in across the listings checked here. Two Pages asks 2 1/2 in for a manual roman shade and 2 7/8 in for a recessed zebra shade, Half Price Drapes asks 2 3/4 in for its French linen roman shade, and Two Pages asks 3 in for an aluminium venetian blind. Neutral Curtains asks 3 5/8 in for the Tavi roller in its specifications block and answers 2 inches in its own FAQ further down the same page, so plan against the larger figure and ask the merchant which one applies.
Does a motorised shade need a deeper window than a manual one?
On the one listing that publishes both, yes, and by a wide margin: 2 1/2 in manual against 4 in motorised for the same Liz Linen roman shade at Two Pages. The page gives the mechanical reason, in that the aluminium headrail is 1 3/4 in deep in manual form and 2 in deep motorised. Measure the depth before you choose the lift, not after.
Do window shades come with the screws and brackets?
Usually, though how much detail you get varies. Two listings itemise the contents: 2 brackets, 4 screws and 4 nails with the Two Pages venetian blind, 2 brackets, 2 screws and 2 nails with its zebra shade. Others say only that installation hardware is included, and the Neutral Curtains woven wood shade is the one that specifies screws for drywall, into a stud or into solid wood. Tools are another matter: the pages that list a drill, a bradawl, a ruler, a pencil and a screwdriver are telling you those are yours to supply.