Cellular Honeycomb Blinds

Why the cottages here want it

Most of St James's coast-road housing dates from the early 1900s: narrow stands, single-brick or stone construction, limited cavity insulation. That combination holds onto a Cape winter's damp and chill in a way a newer cavity-wall home never does, and a cellular honeycomb blind's trapped-air cells are a genuine, no-nonsense way to soften that at the window — the single biggest source of heat loss in an older cottage.

Privacy at eye level, sky still visible

A top-down/bottom-up cellular blind is a particularly good fit on the narrower street-facing windows close to the coast road and the railway platform — you get privacy from anyone walking past at eye level, while still letting sky and light in at the top. It's the same job a day-night blind does, from a different mechanism, and it comes with the thermal benefit built in.

Options that matter here

Blockout cells for bedrooms that want genuine dark and the thermal bonus together; light-filtering cells for living rooms that just want to soften the morning glare off the bay. Double-cell fabric does more insulating work than single-cell, at a higher price point — worth it in a cottage room that's cold every winter regardless of what the rest of the house is doing.

• Top-down/bottom-up operation for street-facing windows near the rail line
• Cordless and motorised options — the slimmest stack of any blind when raised
• Shaped and skylight versions available for gable ends and roof glass

"The room above the old scullery is always freezing" is the line we hear most often on this coast road — a cellular blind is the honest first answer, not new windows.

One honest limit

The fabric can't be steam-cleaned like aluminium, so it's not our first pick for a bathroom or a kitchen that runs damp constantly — aluminium venetians handle that job better. Everywhere else in an older cottage, it's usually the right call.

What a cellular blind costs

Cellular blinds cost more than a flat fabric on a tube because the honeycomb insulates as well as shades — which earns its keep in a single-brick cottage on a cold, damp Cape evening. Installed, expect R1,500 to R2,800 the square metre corded or cordless, and R3,000 to R4,800 where a motor is fitted. Double cells, blockout linings and top-down-bottom-up head rails all sit at the top of each band.

A narrow opening is billed at a minimum, because the head rail and the visit itself do not shrink with the window. The bands are for planning only; the number per window comes out of the free measure, in writing.