Window Treatments for a New Fortville Build: A Practical Guide

Fortville Window Treatments

You don't have to cover every window in a new house at once, and you probably shouldn't. Some rooms need privacy the day you move in. Others can wait until you've lived through a season and learned which windows cook and which ones you never think about. Here's a phasing plan that works in a large Fortville house.

What a builder allowance actually buys

Builder blinds are a stock product cut down on site, and that's not a scandal, it's a supply decision. A machine shortens the headrail and trims the slats and bottom rail to fit, which leaves a cut edge instead of a factory one, and hardware inside the headrail doesn't recenter when the rail gets shorter. Color and opacity choices are short too, usually one white and one light filtering fabric for the whole house.

Stock coverings run roughly $60 to $600 a window nationally. Custom coverings measured in the home and installed run roughly $250 to $2,600. Builder allowances are calculated against the first number, which covers a Fortville house's secondary rooms just fine and covers almost nothing about a dark bedroom or a glare-free office.

Measure the house that got built, not the plan

Nobody should order window coverings off a blueprint, because a plan dimension only describes what the framer was aiming for. Drywall thickness, corner bead, trim reveal, and paint all narrow a framed opening, paint adding a film that matters once it's stacked on top of everything else. Thirty six inches on paper rarely finishes as thirty six inches in the wall.

Measure once the walls are drywalled and trimmed and the paint has wrapped up, and hold off further if the punch list hasn't closed yet, since Fortville builders commonly reset a casing or shim a sill during that pass. Drapery is measured later still, after finished flooring goes in, because the floor sets the hem length. Blinds and shades skip that wait, since they mount from the top down.

The two story great room window wall

Take the great room wall in a Fortville house apart into pieces instead of pricing it as one line item. First, does the upper glass need covering at all. A comfortable, north facing room might not need it. A west facing room that's unusable by mid-afternoon has its entire problem sitting in that upper band. Second, operation, since nothing eighteen feet up moves by hand, motorization is simply how it gets run.

Battery motors cost roughly $100 to $300 a window less than hardwired ones, which is tempting until you remember a battery wand commonly needs fresh batteries about once a year, and this particular wall needs a lift to reach. If the walls are still open, running power now avoids that chore for good.

One giant shade also tends to underperform two smaller ones. Very tall shades give up more at the edges, and one major manufacturer notes bigger light gaps on shades 120 inches and taller or near a four to one height to width ratio. An upper band and a lower band, run independently, usually behave better. Solar fabric handles most view walls well, and openness factor, roughly one to ten percent, is the spec that trades glare control against how much view survives.

Window coverings are the last line item in a new house and the first one people underestimate. Spend where it matters and phase the rest. Indiana requires a written contract on residential work over one hundred fifty dollars under IC 24-5-11, and Fortville Window Treatments puts the scope, the price, and the finish codes in writing on every order so later rooms still match. We're insured and bonded. Reach us at (317) 999-5154.

Trim style and mounting decide what's possible

Two different trim conditions show up in the same new house, and they change everything about mounting. Full wood casing gives you a sill and an apron to work with. Drywall returns give you nothing but drywall wrapping into the opening, no wood at all.

A drywall return opening usually has enough flat depth for an inside mount. An outside mount is the harder call, since drywall by itself won't hold a bracket under real load, meaning the framing above the opening has to be hit or a mounting board goes in first. Drapery hardware carries the same issue with more weight riding on it.

The cheapest time to solve this in a Fortville build is before the drywall goes up, adding blocking wherever a drapery rod is likely to land. It takes a builder a few minutes during framing and it's a real project to add after the fact.

Phase the house instead of doing it all at once

Nothing says a new house has to be finished in one order. Privacy comes first, bedrooms, bathrooms, any room at eye level from the street, and an office where a screen faces the window. Cheap paper shades cover everything else for a season and peel off without damaging fresh paint.

Next come the rooms you spend real time in, bought as complete rooms so the fabric comes from one dye lot instead of several. Drapery and top treatments wait until last, both because they're easier to choose once furniture is in place and because drapery can't be measured until the finished flooring goes down.

The one risk in waiting is a fabric mismatch. A white bought in 2008 isn't guaranteed to match one bought eighteen months later, and that gap is obvious in afternoon light. Record the product line, fabric name, color code, and mount type on each order, and a Fortville homeowner finishing a house over two seasons still ends up with rooms that match.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will custom coverings be ready when we move in?

Only if you order early enough. Custom lead times commonly run two to five weeks from the order going in, and the order can't go in until somebody has measured finished openings. If your trim and paint wrap up two weeks before closing, the math doesn't work for the whole house. The usual plan is to measure as soon as the trim is finished, order the privacy rooms first, hang inexpensive temporary shades everywhere else, and let the rest arrive on its own schedule.

If I finish rooms later, will everything still match?

Only if you keep records. Fabrics and painted finishes are produced in batches, so a white ordered in 2008 won't necessarily match a white ordered a year and a half later, and the difference shows in afternoon light. Ask for the product line, the fabric name, the color code, and the mount type to be written on every order, and keep a copy. Also order any single room complete rather than one window at a time, since matching within a room matters far more than matching between floors.

Do we need to run electrical for motorized shades on the great room wall?

If the walls are still open, it's worth doing. Battery motors run roughly $100 to $300 a window less than hardwired ones, but battery wands commonly need service about once a year, and a wall that tall usually needs a lift just to reach them. Hardwiring while the framing is exposed avoids that recurring chore for good. If the walls are already closed, battery power is still a completely workable answer, just budget for the yearly maintenance.