Roller Blinds for Atholl's Big Glass

The roller is the workhorse of the range for good reason: a fabric panel on a slim aluminium tube, made to measure per window, that does more work per rand than almost anything else in the collection. On the wide north-facing glass common to Atholl's living and dining rooms, a roller in the right fabric is often the whole answer — no bulk, no fuss, a clean line under a bulkhead or exposed as a feature tube in its own right.

The decision that matters most is fabric. Blockout gives you a true light stop and a genuine thermal layer — the right call for bedrooms, nurseries, home cinemas and any room where the highveld's early summer sunrise is unwelcome. Sunscreen fabric, rated by openness factor (3%, 5% or 10%), keeps the garden view while cutting glare and UV; the lower the percentage, the more heat and glare it stops, at the cost of a little view. For most of Atholl's big glass onto mature gardens, 3–5% is the standard starting point.

Where a room wants both — daytime privacy without losing the view, full darkness at night — a double roller pairs a blockout and a sunscreen blind on one bracket, so you switch between them without touching a second window treatment. It's the practical answer for a bedroom that also happens to have the best garden view in the house.

Control is chain, spring-assist or motorised — chain blinds are fitted with a child-safe tensioner that anchors the loop taut to the wall as standard, and wand-tilt or cordless alternatives are worth asking about for a nursery or kids' room. On wider or higher windows, or anywhere you'd rather not reach for a chain, motorising the roller is the more comfortable long-term choice. Cassette or pelmet valances are available to hide the tube completely, with the fascia colour-matched to your frames.

Where a roller wins, and where it doesn't

Rollers suit modern interiors, big glass and tight-to-premium budgets equally well, and they're the easiest product in the range to keep clean. They're not the natural choice for a heritage room with sash windows and original proportions — a timber venetian usually sits better there — and a very wide unbroken span will always show a join line somewhere unless it's motorised and linked.

What a roller blind costs in Atholl

Guide figures, per square metre, installed. A chain- or spring-driven roller in solid, mesh or translucent cloth runs from about R1,000 to R1,600 per square metre, with a plain blockout at the lower edge of that and a tight-openness sunscreen or a double-roller bracket carrying two cloths at the upper. Motorised, the same window comes in at R2,500 to R3,800 per square metre, which includes the tube motor, the control you settle on and the commissioning.

These bands are for planning only. A short window carries a minimum charge, because the brackets, tube and fitting labour barely shrink with the opening, and the real figure for each window is worked out at the free measure and confirmed in writing.