Bottom up
The usual shade: raised from the bottom, the view and the light come from below. Fully raised, the window is open.
Top-Down Bottom-Up Shades
Top-down bottom-up shades: daylight from above, privacy below.
Lower the top of the shade and the sky comes in while the sidewalk stays out. The setting for bathrooms, street-level living rooms, and bedrooms with a neighbor next door. Portrait™ honeycomb shades in cordless, cord loop, motorized, and SmartFit® framed versions, installed by PAPABLINDS across the Greater Seattle Area.
Three positions, one shade.
Two rails move independently. Where you leave them decides how the window works.
Top down
The top rail lowers and the bottom stays on the sill. Daylight and sky above, privacy at eye level. The everyday setting for a bathroom or a street-facing room.
Both
A band of fabric floats in the middle of the window, covering exactly the part you want covered: the neighbor’s window, the parked cars, the sun on the screen.
Where top-down earns its place.
Light without the view in
Top down all day: bright room, nobody sees in. The most common reason people ask for this shade.
Sidewalk at eye level
Cover the lower half of a living room window and keep the trees and sky above it.
Neighbors within reach
Close the window next door, keep the daylight, and lower the whole shade at night.
SmartFit® frames
A framed shade mounted to the door itself, with top-down bottom-up inside the frame, so the shade moves with the door.
SmartFit®: the framed version.
SmartFit® puts the honeycomb shade inside a slim frame that mounts to the window or the door. The frame holds the rails in line, closes the light gaps along the sides, and lets the shade ride on a door that swings. It is the answer for French doors, for sloped and odd-shaped windows, and for rooms where an inside mount would leak light.
The SmartFit® Dual Shade puts two fabrics in one frame, each on its own rails, so a sheer or light-filtering fabric handles the day and a room-darkening fabric handles the night, both with top-down bottom-up control.
- Framed shade for doors, sloped windows, and specialty shapes.
- Two fabrics in one frame, raised or lowered independently.
- Any color and opacity for each fabric: sheer, light filtering, room darkening.
- Honeycomb shades with frames are more energy efficient, per Norman.
© 2021 Norman®. All Rights Reserved.Which shades offer top-down bottom-up.
- Portrait™ honeycomb, cordless top-down bottom-up
- Portrait™ honeycomb, cord loop top-down
- Portrait™ honeycomb, motorized top-down bottom-up
- SmartFit® framed and SmartFit® Dual Shade
- Roller and solar shades: bottom up only
- Roman shades: ask at the visit
Top-down bottom-up questions.
Does the top rail stay where I leave it?
Yes. The cordless system holds both rails at any position; the motorized version stops where the remote or the app tells it to.
Is there a light gap when the top is down?
The lowered top rail sits against the fabric, so the gap is the same small edge gap as any inside mount. A SmartFit® frame or side channels close it.
Can I get it in a room-darkening fabric?
Yes. Top-down bottom-up works with sheer, light-filtering, and room-darkening cells, and the Dual Shade combines two of them.
Does it cost more than a regular cellular shade?
Somewhat, because there are two rails and two mechanisms. On a bathroom window it is usually the difference between a shade you leave closed and a window you use.
Top-down bottom-up shades for privacy with daylight
Seattle lots are narrow, Eastside townhouses stand a few feet apart, and a lot of bathroom and bedroom windows look straight into the house next door. A top-down bottom-up shade covers the part of the window at eye level and leaves the top open to the sky, which is why it is the shade we install most in bathrooms. Norman’s Portrait™ honeycomb line offers it cordless, on a cord loop, motorized, and inside a SmartFit® frame. PAPABLINDS measures and installs them in Seattle, Bellevue, Kirkland, Redmond, and nearby communities.
Bathrooms and ground-floor rooms
Leave the bottom rail on the sill and lower the top rail a third of the way. The room is bright, the mirror has daylight, and nobody on the path outside sees anything but the top of a shade. At night, raise the top rail to close the window fully. A room-darkening fabric does both jobs in a bedroom.
French doors and odd windows
A door needs a shade that moves with it, and a sloped or arched window needs one that fits the shape. SmartFit® frames hold a honeycomb shade in a slim frame mounted to the door or the window, with top-down bottom-up inside it and no light gaps along the sides. The SmartFit® Dual Shade adds a second fabric in the same frame.
Top-down shades or privacy blinds
A blind with concealed route holes gives privacy through tilt; a top-down shade gives it through position. In a bathroom with a small window either works, and the shade is the softer look. On a wide living room window the shade’s floating band of fabric is the more flexible tool.
Request a free in-home visit and we set a sample at top-down height in your window so you can see exactly what stays hidden.