Custom Blinds & Shades in Cary, NC

Preston is the largest of the established communities — roughly 1,291 homes across 35 subdivisions, most built between 1988 and 2001, on lots from about a third of an acre past a full acre on the estate sections. That construction era has a signature: Palladian windows over the entry, arched transoms in the primary bedroom, and a lot of specialty shapes a stock product simply does not fit. Arched openings either get a custom-fabricated shutter panel cut to the radius, or you treat the rectangle below and leave the arch open. Both are legitimate. What does not work is forcing a square product into a curved opening and living with the gap.

Lochmere was platted in the mid-1980s through the 1990s around a private lake, and the mature canopy there does real work. Those houses get far less direct sun than a comparable home in a newer subdivision, which changes the recommendation. Glare control matters less. What people want in Lochmere is warmth and privacy on the lake side, and that points toward Roman shades and cellular rather than solar screen.

Amberly and the newer master-planned sections on the west side of town, built from the late 1990s into the 2010s, sit on tighter lots of 0.20 to 0.40 acres with houses closer together. Side-elevation privacy becomes the driving concern, because you are looking at a neighbor window rather than a yard. Top-down bottom-up gives you light without the sightline. On the townhome sections, shared-wall floor plans put most of the glass on two ends of the house, which makes those rooms swing between too bright and too dark. Layering a solar shade for daytime with a drapery panel for evening handles that better than one product trying to do both jobs.