Measuring Tips

Providing accurate measurements is a very important task when ordering blinds over the internet. To that end we would like to explain two things to you:

INSIDE verses OUTSIDE dimensions

Outside dimensions are required when your window treatment (shades, blinds, etc) will be mounted completely outside of your window opening. Anotherwords on your inside wall and not within the window opening itself ! This is rather easily done as you just measure the length and width that you want your shades, curtains or blinds to be and that is it. In a few weeks you will receive a product that is exactly those dimensions. In practically all cases, the dimensions you provide us should exceed the dimensions of the window opening itself if you have done it right ! Please double check yourself if this is not the case.

Inside dimensions are required when your window treatment (shades, blinds, etc) will be mounted within the window opening itself. But note, usually a window opening has multiple dimensions on the inside ! Which one to use ? Simple, use the one nearest your inside wall. Generally its the largest inside opening you have. One last important point: INSIDE DIMENSIONS differ from OUTSIDE DIMENSIONS in one important regard: the product that you will be receiving in a few weeks will actually be SMALLER than what you ordered ! Don’t be alarmed. The reason this is done is so that the window dressing product will fit inside your window (remember your inside dimensions). If we made it the same size it would not fit unless it was forced in. Not good ! So whenever we receive inside dimensions we automatically make the product slight smaller (usually a 1/4 inch on each side) so that it fits in your window opening. And why is this a good thing to do ourselves and not let you compensate for it yourself? Because we want things to be simple for you and each product has different tolerances. So, the clearance issue is best left in our hands. You just give us the actual inside dimensions and we will make a product that will fit into that opening perfectly for you. Got it now? Inside verses outside dimensions. Outside is simple. Inside is too but just remember that we do the compensating automatically.

USING A TAPE MEASURE

This is always the best tool to use for most homeowners. They are inexpensive and accurate.

But we want to give you one word of caution when using it. If you are holding the tape measure on the inside of the window its common to hold the entire tape measure within the window opening itself. But CAUTION, if you have the entire case of the tape measure within the opening (measuring from within and not from along the wall) then you might have to compensate for the width of the tape case itself. If that is the case look on the side of the tape case itself and you will see a little stamped note which tells you how wide the tape case body is. Commonly its 2 inches (for small tapes) but it can be anything. So check what the case says it is and add it to what you read off the tape itself. If in doubt measure without using the tape case at all and check that your measurements agree. So important !

Thank you,
BindShadeStore technical support