Oranjezicht Blinds / Products / Roller blinds
Roller blinds, specified for an Oranjezicht sash
One smooth sheet of fabric on a tube — no folds, no stacking, nothing to gather dust. Blockout, sunscreen and double-roller day-and-night, all made to your measurements.
A single flat sheet on a tube — that is the whole idea
A roller blind is one continuous piece of fabric wound onto an aluminium tube. Lower it and you get a flat, unbroken plane across the glass. Raise it and the whole thing disappears into a roll no thicker than your wrist. There are no folds, no pleats and no stacked slats, which is exactly why it works so cleanly against the tall, narrow proportions of an original Oranjezicht sash window as well as the wide glass extension behind it.
That simplicity is also what makes it the most fabric-driven product we fit. The hardware barely changes between one roller and the next; the fabric is what decides whether a room goes dark, keeps its mountain view, or holds the west sun's heat out of the glass. Which is why the consultant brings physical samples to the measure rather than asking you to choose off a screen.
Which roller belongs on which window
Blockout
A coated fabric that stops light rather than filtering it. Bedrooms, nurseries and media rooms. Fitted with a side channel or generous overlap it also cuts the cold radiating off single-glazed sash glass on a wet July morning.
Sunscreen
An open mesh weave with a stated openness factor. It knocks back glare and UV while you still read Table Mountain through it — the right answer for living-room glass that faces the slope.
Double roller (day & night)
Blockout and sunscreen on one bracket, each on its own tube. View and glare control by day, full privacy after dark on a street-facing window, one clean fitting.
Blackout-lined dual
Where a room needs both but the opening is too wide for two full tubes, we split the run and align the joins so the blinds read as one continuous line across the glass.
The parts that decide whether it still works in five years
- Chain or cord operation with a child-safe tensioner fitted as standard — or a wand, cordless spring or motor where a loop is not wanted at all
- Powder-coated brackets and sealed components on anything going into a bathroom, scullery or a cold south-facing room
- Inside- or outside-mount decided against the actual reveal depth of the sash, not forced to a standard bracket
- Reverse or standard roll, decided on site — a reverse roll clears a deep sill or a window handle a standard roll would foul
- Side channels or a generous overlap on bedroom blackouts, because the light leak down the edges is what actually wakes people up
- Fabric weights matched to drop — a four-metre glass-extension drop needs a different weight and tube diameter to a bathroom sash, and we size it rather than guess it
The sun that stands at 75° in December is the same sun at 31° in June
Most shading advice assumes one sun angle. Oranjezicht gets two, and they are a long way apart. At December’s solar noon the sun stands almost overhead at 75°, high and easy to shade. By June it has dropped to 31°, still due north but sliding in low and searching under any eave that shaded the same window in summer. West is the elevation that costs the most — the afternoon sun sets south of west and keeps dropping through the day, so heat, glare and fabric fading land together with nothing overhead to stop them.
In practice we spec sunscreen on the mountain-facing glass so the view survives, blockout in the bedrooms, and a double roller wherever a room has to do both jobs at different times of day. On original sash windows we choose a fixing method that suits the frame rather than a standard bracket, and on anything in the Heritage Protection Overlay Zone we say plainly when a Heritage Western Cape permit applies to work fixed outside the glass — which a blind fitted inside the reveal never is.
Roller blinds across the City Bowl
Blockout, sunscreen and double-roller specifying isn’t only an Oranjezicht conversation — the same fabric decisions come up on architect-glazed slopes in Higgovale, iron-lace balconies in Tamboerskloof, Company’s Garden apartments in Gardens and windswept balconies in Vredehoek.
Worth knowing before the measure
Will a sunscreen roller give us privacy at night?
No, and any supplier who says otherwise is selling you something. A mesh works by transmitting light — during the day you see out because it is brighter outside, and at night that reverses. If the window needs both, a double roller carrying sunscreen and blockout on the same bracket is the honest answer.
Can a roller be fitted inside an original sash frame without damaging it?
Usually yes. We measure the reveal depth at the free assessment and choose inside- or outside-mount to suit what is actually there — a compact bracket fits inside most sash reveals, and where it genuinely doesn’t, a face-fixed option above the architrave keeps every fixing out of the original frame.
How dark does blockout actually go?
The fabric itself passes no light. What you notice is the gap around the edges, so on bedrooms we quote side channels or a wider outside-mount overlap where the reveal allows. Say “this room needs to be properly dark” at the measure and the consultant will spec for that rather than for a tidier-looking fit.
Do you fit roller blinds outside, on a terrace?
For an outdoor position we would normally specify a zip screen instead — the mesh runs in a zipped side channel so it holds taut against the Cape Doctor rather than flapping. An indoor roller fabric and bracket set is not built for that kind of wind.
Other things we fit in Oranjezicht
Not sure which fabric your rooms need?
That is exactly what the free in-home measure is for. A consultant reads the light in each room, brings physical samples, and puts a written price against every window.
Tell us about your windows
Tell us which rooms you are looking at and roughly how many windows. One of our expert consultants will contact you shortly to arrange your free in-home measure.
- No obligation, no call-centre — a consultant calls you directly
- Fabric samples brought to the measure, not just a screen swatch
- Written, itemised quote before anything is ordered