Products

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Products/Terms/Warranty:

Shades Of The Future® attends the national window coverings trade shows to seek out the best products. We research the market place and do our homework. The goal is to offer products that have a high value to quality ratio. We are not trying to be the cheapest or most expensive, but offer products with excellent performance at affordable prices. If we can’t stand behind the product and put our name on it, we won’t offer it for sale.

You are probably an expert in your field and expect your suppliers to know their business and be experts as well. We consider it our duty to know the industry and recommend quality products that won’t be a disappointment in later years. Window coverings are a significant investment and the goal is that your expectations be exceeded and that your selections last a long time.

For blinds, shades and other core products in the “hard treatments” category, the industry leader is Hunter Douglas Window Fashions. They are the innovators. They spend millions per year on R&D and focus groups. Other manufacturers copy and build knock-off look-alikes. There is a difference and we offer top quality products for your project.

Because of the superior quality and industry leadership of Hunter Douglas, Shades Of The Future® has been offering its products since 1979. When it comes to window coverings we offer Hunter Douglas exclusively.

For interior plantation window shutters, our research shows real hardwood shutters are still the best choice. Our preferred vendor is Woodfold/Marco.

Primarily for areas of high humidity or moisture you may prefer a faux wood shutter. There is a small saving for faux over wood, about 15%. But you choose a faux shutter more for the application than savings. For faux shutters our preferred vendor is San Benito. Their Davenport line is PAINTED and most faux shutters are the color of the plastic from the extruder. Hope you like white and off-white! Also, if unpainted, you see the pull lines of the material as it left the extruder. We offer a large number of stock paints and also custom color for these faux shutters. We think shutters should feel solid, not hollow, and not look like plastic. That’s why when it comes to faux shutters we only offer San Benito’s Davenport line.

For roman shades, manually operated or motorized, our preferred vendor is: Castec Window Shading.

Terms: Our terms are standard for custom materials: 1/2 down and balance on delivery. For out of town projects, final payment is required before shipment. Freight will be included in the price quoted.

We accept checks, VISA, MasterCard and American Express (if no other card is available). The minimum amount per charge card transaction is $500 or 100% of your purchase, whichever is lower. Shades Of The Future® is bonded for $15,000.

Warranty: Manufacturer’s warranties apply to the products. Most Hunter Douglas products offer a lifetime limited warranty for as long as you own the product. If you are in the local service area, we will come to the site to service this warranty free of charge for the first year (trip is billable thereafter). Carry in service offered free after the first year to fulfill the manufacturer’s warranty. You will find that service pretty unusual. Motorized equipment is warranted for 1 year.

The lifetime limited warranty means the components are replaced if they fail. The shade and blind cords are not guaranteed to last forever. Just like tires on your car, cords will eventually need to be replaced. Most cords on blinds last 10 years or more with new Ultra cord from Hunter Douglas. Today you can have a standard Duette or blind restrung for about $55.

If you have a premature cord failure you can expect it to be taken care of. But if your kitty decides to use the cords for dental floss…that’s another story!

Out of town customers will be responsible for freight to our office on warranty repairs, but we pay the return freight.

Vignette® Modern Folding Shades

Roman shades provide a soft elegant look to any room. The look is timeless and rich. The picture on this page shows the Hunter Douglas Vignette®. While a traditional roman gathers in soft folds below the window header, Vignette rolls into its headrail/valance system. Several stylish fabrics and fold sizes are available.

New to the Vignette line is Top Down/Bottom up, for those applications where you need low privacy and want to enjoy your view.

Folds: Vignette has offered their traditional 3″ and 4″ contoured fold and now available is 6″ Tailored flat fold.

Vignette is now available in Evescape room darkening in all fabrics, colors and fold types. (Except Evescape is not available in top down/bottom up.)

Maximum size in Evescape is 72″ x 84″. If you need Evescape for a wider application, you can order the window covering with 2 panels in one headrail. That width limit applies to the rest of the line, except a few fabrics have a 70″ width limit.

Vignette window coverings, by Hunter Douglas, are only available in our local service area.

Sun Screening

Sun Screening

Shades Of The Future supplies finished sun screen products to fit your application. Call us to discuss your project requirements.

This photo is a solar fabric in roman shade format on sloped glazing. The material is Sheerweave in 5% openness. It may be fabricated into a roman shade or as a roller shade with a beaded chain control loop. If the shade is too large for manual operation, motorization will handle the raising and lowering.

This project is in Portland, Oregon, at the Wells Fargo Bank tower, formerly First Interstate Bank. There are 60 of these shades, which are 65″ wide x 221″ long. They are operated by the building’s automation system. This is a large commercial project, but we can handle the simplest manual shade for a residence.

The fabric shown is medium gray. The darker the fabric, the better will be the through view from the interior. Lighter fabrics will create more glare and reduce the view to the outside.

There are many fabric colors to choose from as well as densities of weave. The tighter the weave (as tight as 1-3%) the more sun block will be achieved. More open fabrics (up to 30% openness) the more view is afforded to the exterior. Openness sacrifices sun block. We recommend 5% openness factor to control glare.

We now offer a sun screen fabric that permits view through it, but looks like upholstery fabric. It is very attractive!

Lake Grove Presbyterian Church project:

We just finished a solar shading project at Lake Grove Presbyterian Church in Lake Oswego, Oregon. The congregation has just finished a major remodel of their church, including installation of a beautiful organ with 1500 pipes. One window, about 26 feet off the floor, is just behind the organ pipes. This window is hexagonal, about 11 feet wide and high. On occassion they needed solar shading for this window. The unusual requirement was that the shade needed to be motorized and lift from the bottom upward.

The finished solar shade is 108″ wide and 94″ high, roman shade style, with 3% openness in black. It was designed specifically for this application. It folds into its own box at the bottom of the window and is not visible to the congregation when lowered.

Shades Of The Future® was selected for this project because if its experience with lift systems like this and its ability to delivery totally unique products that solve individual problems. All of the strict size restrictions were met and the product works beautifully.

We can supply the Sheerweave sun screen roller shades, that meets the interior specifications for Subway Submarine sandwich shops.

If you are looking for manual or automated skylight shades, we have them! They may be fabricated from sun screen material, as described above, Duette, one of the pleated shade materials, or black out products.

Our newest product for skylight shading is an automated, battery operated, remote controlled! shade, fabricated with double cell honeycomb material. These shades have tracks on all four sides. They are extremely versatile and may be up to 48″ x 96″. These shades range in price from $700 to about $800 each. For a double honeycomb, battery operated remote controlled system, this is a very reasonable price. Room darkening, cellular skylight shade fabric, is now available.

Wood Blinds

Hunter Douglas Products:

Wood Blinds

Our primary vendor for wood blinds is Hunter Douglas. They have a very expansive wood blind offering at attractive prices. Their line includes Country Woods in 2″ slats in smooth or textured finish, as well as 2 5/8″ slats. There is even a 3 1/2″ wooden vertical product called Crosswinds.

Shades Of The Future® has searched the marketplace for wood blinds that offer the best price/value. Our recommendation is Hunter Douglas for wood blinds.

Reliable, consistent quality is the prime reason for this recommendation.

Hunter Douglas now offers TopShield II™ finishing process to further protect Country Woods real wood blinds. This includes further resistance to: fading, moisture, scratches and chemicals.

Wood Blind Key Benefits:

• Real wood product
• Additional mini wood slats offered in 1″ and 1 3/8″ vanes
• Lighter weight than vinyl products
• Fewer vertical ladders to interrupt your view than other window covering products
• Up to 8′ as a single width
• Moderately priced, US made
• Priced lower than Duette cellular products
• High quality operating system
• Many choices of paint and stain finished
• Stained finishes are beautiful

Everwood® Faux wood blinds (Our best selling horizontal slat blind):

For a man-made alternative to wood blinds we recommend Hunter Douglas’ premium faux wood blind: Everwood. Our research and experience with this product shows that Everwood will perform in harsh, high humidity environments and where moisture may be splashed on the slats. The extruded slat is a combination of wood fiber and polymers. It will fool anyone. It looks just like wood. Everwood is now available in 20 white and off-white finishes with new stained colors and etched finishes. Everwood will price out about 15% less than Country Woods. The Delight feature is NOW available on 2″ Everwood for a 20% up charge. The Everwood line has added a new 2 1/2″ beveled edge slat called Everwood Xtra. Delight on 2 1/2″ Everwood is available for 20% additional.

The standard valance is now 3 1/4″ Grandover and this profile is a little different than the standard valance offered before 9/4/07.

The Everwood collection now includes TruGrain™, Hunter Douglas’ faux wood grain slat. Before TruGrain™ if you wanted a slat that looked like real wood, you only had real wood to choose. Now TruGrain™ slats are available and they look just like real, stained wood. Hunter Douglas has developed a process that applies a grain print to the slat that is indistinguishable from the real thing.

Hunter Douglas now offers battery operated, remote control tilt on virtually ALL of their horizontal blind products.

Cellular Shades

Our project featured in Hunter Douglas brochures

The cellular honeycomb category of window coverings was invented by Hunter Douglas in 1985. The first product was called Duette®. Some years later competitors developed their own versions of cellular shades. Our understanding is that a licensing agreement is in place that allows others to market their cellular products, that were invented by Hunter Douglas.

Duettes have been recommended by Shades Of The Future® since their introduction in 1985. Several years ago Graber’s Crystal Pleat was also marketed by us. Crystal Pleat has a good price point and a soft hand, that some customers prefer, but when exposed to the home environment, the soft, relatively porous material soiled quickly. This fact and quality problems with the fabric resulted in Crystal Pleat being dropped from our line.  Crystal Pleat cannot be ultrasonically cleaned.

In recent years Hunter Douglas filled the need for a softer hand by coming out with Duette Batiste and Panche. While softer, they aren’t as porous as Crystal Pleat.

Hunter Douglas also offers a lower price point line called Applause. The warranty is the same. The updated hardware on Duette has rounded corners and a trim appearance.

Applause offers a scaled down line in comparison to the massive fabric and hardware options available in Duette.

Generally, the stiffer the fabric the more resistant it will be to pilling when being cleaned and the more durable it will be. Take these factors into consideration when selecting your cellular shades.

The Hunter Douglas cellular line may be ultrasonically cleaned or immersed in a tub, except for the black out fabrics, which may only be vacuumed. Seldom is more than vacuuming necessary. The polyester fabric naturally repels dust.

Duette and Applause cellular make a very high performance skylight shade and are our recommendation for skylight shade material.

Duette Key Benefits:

• Huge selection of fabrics – completely resampled with beautiful fabrics and hardware!
• Automated systems, battery and hard wired

Applause Cellular Key Benefits:

• Now available with PowerRise battery lift system.
• Lower price point than Duette
• Hunter Douglas brand name

Home Theater Shades

For a board room, school or church sanctuary…..

For residential clients looking for blackout shading for a home theater….

Shades Of The Future is a specialist in media room shading.

A few considerations:

• If the window treatment is to be automated, plan ahead for wiring, when possible to reduce the electrician’s cost.
• Decide how dark you need the room. Absolute darkness can be achieved, but usually requires side tracked blackout roller shades.
• Think twice about a skylights and windows in a media room. Absolute light stopping is virtually impossible on skylights.
• Theater shading is not inexpensive. Motorization typically adds $700 per opening. Remote controls and integrated control systems are all available. Just be sure you have a realistic budget first.

Home Theater Shades… Key Benefits:

• Theater shading adds that extra “wow” factor to your media room.
• Properly controlled light is essential to achieve the maximum from your projection equipment.
• Theater shading fabrics may be coordinated with other furnishings.

Capabilities

Shades Of The Future® is the preferred shading supplier for many of the best home theater specialists in the Portland area.

Consulting with theater vendor

As part of your media room shading contract Shades Of The Future® will coordinate with your media vendor to make sure all equipment is compatible.

Consulting with electrician

Due to code requirements, all wiring is done by your licensed electrician and Shades Of The Future® will work closely with the electrician to make sure the wiring is in place for the shades to operate as you specify.

Consulting with your Interior Designer

If you have an Interior Designer on your project we will work closely to ensure the look is perfect. Many products may be constructed with customer’s own material (COM) as specified by the Interior Designer.

We are available to travel to your project.

Modern Precious Metals® Aluminum Blinds

Modern Precious Metals Aluminum Blinds

Under the Precious Metals category you will find Hunter Douglas’ aluminum blind lines: LightLines®, Decor® , Celebrity®, and the newest product called Reveal™ with MagnaView™.

Shades Of The Future® recommends this line because of value, beauty and selection, updated with new features, colors and textures. Horizontal aluminum metal blinds are hard to beat when it comes to price, sun control and privacy. Available in 1/2″, 1″ (most popular by far) and 2″ vanes, Hunter Douglas again leads the pack in beauty and ease of operation in this category.

The Precious Metals line includes a color matched valance integrated into the headrail, instead of two loose slats held by plastic clips. It is very attractive as well as practical.

The most popular product in metal blinds is Hunter Douglas’ 1″ LightLines® mini blinds. The vanes are made of spring tempered and heat treated 8 gauge aluminum for maximum spring-back durability in harsh environments. Delight style with no visible route cord holes is standard.

Decor® is the mid-priced line with 8 gauge vane stock, visible route holes, more slats per inch, increasing your value, and a large selection of colors to choose from.

Celebrity’s 6 gauge slats will be the least-cost choice for your window.

While other brands may be lower in priced than Precious Metals, this line will outlast cheaper products and be a pleasure to operate with its superior lift and tilt mechanisms. You will appreciate the 30% heavier vane stock on 8 gauge vane lines and lock seam bottom rail that won’t sag on the widest of windows.

LightLines® Metal Blinds Key Benefits:

• Spring tempered, heat treated 8 gauge vanes
• No visible route holes when closed – no dots of light showing!
• Integrated stylish valance
• Hidden support brackets have been redesigned for easier use
• Smooth operators
• Hundreds of finish choices

New! Reveal™ with MagnaView™ Key Benefits:

• Spring tempered, heat treated 8 gauge vanes
• Double the view when tilted open (every other slat “sticks” to the one above it when tilted open, doubling your open view space)
• Available in 1″ and 2″ slats
• Integrated stylish valance

Silhouette Window Shadings®

Silhouette Window Shadings®, by Hunter Douglas, is yet another entire category of window coverings product. Silhouette is a horizontal product with privacy fabric vanes that appear to float between sheer facings front and rear. A standard, continuous cord loop tilts and raises the product into its stylish roller headrail system.

Silhouette has been around for about 15 years and several product line updates have been completed. Silhouette Bon Soir vanes have a foil layer sandwiched between fabric layers, which accomplishes the room darkening. While much darker than the translucent version, it is not a black out treatment.In addition to light dimming fabric, Bon Soir, we now have 4″ vane Quartette, which provides expanded views to the outside.

Also joining Silhouette are:

• Toujours with linen-textured vanes
• Bon Jour with raw silk-textured vanes
• And the Matisse collection with bold colors never seen befoe in Silhouette

Both Bon Soir and the translucent families of fabric offer complete privacy. Some clients prefer Bon Soir for an additional level of privacy. Some transmission of a person’s outline, hence the name Silhouette, is to be expected, when you are between the light source and closed Silhouette after dark. But one’s state of dress is not noticeable.

Silhouette Window Shadings Key Benefits:

• #1 top preferred product for window coverings
• Retain view while adding day time privacy
• Easy operating system
• Room darkening fabrics available
• Up to 10 foot widths in single unit
• Now available: Up to 12′ wide via 2 on 1 headrail, along with new colors and options. 2 on 1 must be evenly split in width.
• Fabrics range from neutrals to rich jewel tones
• Battery operated lift and tilt system available

Hunter Douglas won’t allow me to sell this product out of my local service area.

Park Lane® Privacy Sheers

Park Lane™ Privacy Sheers

Privacy Sheers can be considered an entirely new category of window treatment. Everywhere you want elegance, but not draperies, privacy, but not verticals, you need Privacy Sheers. Today you can choose from the premium, full featured Luminette, or the new Park Lane™ Privacy Sheers.

Think of Privacy Sheers as a soft, luxurious sheer with the versatility and privacy options of a vertical, but without the hard edge look of a vertical. Hunter Douglas invented Luminette® and Park Lane™, again demonstrating their leadership and innovation.

Park Lane® has slim privacy panels sonically welded to the sheer facings. With just a twist of the control rod the panels tilt and provide privacy. Total privacy.

Park Lane® Privacy Sheers Key Benefits:

• Soft sheers come in one way draw only, either left or right.
• Privacy panels integrated into the sheers
• Optional Terrace room darkening privacy panels
• Uses the Paramount vertical headrail system
• Optional decorative valance available
• Outside mount (on the wall vs. inside the window casing) only
• About 25% less than Luminette®

Hunter Douglas won’t allow me to sell this product out of my local service area.

Provenance® Woven Wood Shades

Provenance Woven Wood

Roman shades provide a soft elegant look to any room. The look is timeless and rich. The picture on this page shows the Hunter Douglas Provenance® Woven Wood shades. A wide array of stylish materials in grasses, reeds and jute are available.

The lifting system is standard with a cord lock, but a beaded chain clutch lift system is recommended for easy operation and durability.

In addition to Hunter Douglas we also offer Fashion Tech and Conrad lines of woven shades.