What Are the Best Window Coverings for Vaulted and Two-Storey Windows?

Sunday, August 23, 2026 — Wholesale Blind Factory

For vaulted spaces and two-storey windows, the short answer is: motorized roller shades or motorized cellular shades for anything out of arm's reach, solar shades where the goal is taming heat and glare while keeping the view, and — for the angled or arched shapes that often crown a vaulted wall — custom-cut coverings made to the actual geometry of the opening. Tall windows are the one category where "I'll just adjust it by hand" quietly stops being true, so the covering has to be planned around access as much as looks.

Why tall windows are their own problem

A great room with sixteen feet of glass is glorious in April and punishing in August. The same height that makes the room feel open does three inconvenient things: it puts the top of the window far beyond any wand or cord, it turns the upper glass into a heat collector all afternoon, and it makes every covering choice highly visible — whatever you hang up there becomes part of the room's architecture. That's why the decision splits into two questions: how will you operate it, and what do you want the light to do?

Operation first: motorize what you can't reach

Motorized roller or cellular shades are the default answer for the tall sections. A Somfy motor in the headrail moves the shade at the press of a remote, on an app schedule, or as part of a scene — "sunset" lowering the whole wall at once is exactly the kind of thing tall-window owners end up loving daily.
Battery vs wired: rechargeable battery motors retrofit cleanly with no electrician; if you're building or renovating, running power to the headrail during construction is worth doing at heights where ladder access is a production.
Skip corded products up high, full stop. A cord you can't reach is a cord that does nothing — and long dangling cords on tall windows are precisely what modern child-safety rules exist to eliminate. Cordless-by-design motorization solves both at once.
For tall-but-reachable windows (say, nine or ten feet with a safe step), a manual shade with an extended wand can work — but be honest about whether anyone will actually climb to adjust it twice a day. Most won't, and the covering ends up permanently half-closed.

Light and heat: what to put on all that glass

Solar roller shades are the tall-window workhorse: they cut glare and UV dramatically while preserving the view that justified the windows in the first place. Openness factor matters — a tighter weave blocks more heat and light, a looser one keeps more view.
Cellular (honeycomb) shades are the pick when insulation leads: vaulted rooms lose heat through big glass in winter, and trapped-air cells measurably slow that down. In BC's climate, south- and west-facing walls of glass are the ones that repay cellular's efficiency fastest.
Light-filtering vs blackout: great rooms rarely want blackout up high — softened daylight is usually the goal. Save true blackout for the bedroom loft where morning sun is the enemy.
Faux wood blinds and heavier horizontal products are best kept to the lower, human-height windows of the wall; at height, their weight and tilt mechanisms add complexity without adding much.

The shapes above the squares

Vaulted walls often crown their rectangular windows with angles, trapezoids, triangles, or arches. Two honest options: leave the shaped glass bare — architecturally that's often the right call, since those panes are usually above sightlines and privacy concerns — or cover them with custom-cut coverings made to the exact angle. As a factory, we cut to the geometry of the opening rather than forcing a stock rectangle to cope; that's the difference between a covering that looks engineered and one that looks improvised. What we'll tell you plainly in a consultation: fixed shaped coverings generally don't raise and lower the way rectangles do, so decide whether those panes need coverage at all before paying to cover them.

Planning the install

Measure at height honestly. Tall openings magnify small measuring errors, and out-of-square framing is common at the top of older vaulted walls. This is a job where a professional measure earns its keep — our installers measure, and the fit is on us.
Think in zones. One wall of glass might sensibly become three groups: shaped uppers (often left bare), tall middle shades (motorized), and lower windows (manual or motorized to match). Grouped motors can still move together on one remote or schedule.
Mind the stack and the sill. A shade that tall has a bigger rolled-up stack; we'll spec the headrail and brackets for the real weight and drop, which is another place where custom manufacturing beats cut-down stock product.
Match fabrics across heights. Because everything is cut from the same rolls here in Coquitlam, the tall motorized shades and the reachable manual ones can share an identical fabric and colour — the wall reads as one design instead of a patchwork.

The bottom line for vaulted rooms

Put motors on anything above arm's reach, choose solar or cellular fabric depending on whether view or insulation leads, leave or custom-cut the shaped panes deliberately, and have the measuring done by someone who's accountable for the fit. If you're standing in a great room squinting at the afternoon sun right now, book the free in-home consultation — bringing the factory to the window is exactly what we're for, and tall windows are where that visit pays for itself fastest.