Curtains & Blinds · Blockouts
Blockout curtains
The dark room, done properly.
What it is
Blockout curtains
A blockout is a curtain built to stop light. The face fabric is heavier than a standard drape, and a dedicated blockout lining sits behind it, so light doesn't pass through the cloth itself. Blockouts hang on standard curtain tracks and take almost any header: pinch pleat, reverse pleat, or wave.
The point of a blockout is a dark room. Bedrooms, media rooms, west-facing living rooms where afternoon glare is unlivable. What a blockout actually delivers depends less on the fabric than on how it's fitted around the window.
The honest bit
Blockout fabric doesn't block light. The install does
This is the part nobody explains. The blockout lining stops light passing through the cloth. It does nothing about light travelling around it. In a reveal-fit install, or a face-fit that only just covers the window, light comes in over the top, up the sides and along the floor: three bright lines that make the room read grey rather than dark. To get a genuinely dark room the curtain has to be face-fitted, floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall, with generous return depth at each side. Anything short of that is a blockout in name only. That's why we ask about ceiling height and wall run before we quote fabric: the install decides the outcome, and the fabric only ever finishes the job.
Where it works best
Bedrooms, nurseries, media rooms
Blockouts belong on the windows where sleep and screen viewing matter more than the view. Master bedrooms, kids' rooms, nurseries, media rooms and any west-facing room where the afternoon glare wins. In a bedroom that also serves a daytime function, we usually pair the blockout with a sheer in front so the day layer isn't a heavy fabric across a bright window. On living rooms and formal spaces the read tends to be too heavy on its own; a sheer or a layered system is usually a better call.
Where it belongs
Who it suits, and who it doesn't
Who it suits
- Bedrooms and media rooms where a genuinely dark room matters
- West-facing glass with punishing afternoon sun
- Layered behind a sheer on a second track (see layered sheer + blockout)
- Rooms with wall run either side of the window for full face-fit coverage
Who it doesn't
- Windows where reveal-fit is the only option (the light seal isn't there)
- Rooms where a slightly softened daylight is the goal (choose sheers instead)
- Very small windows where face-fit floor-to-ceiling reads oversized
- Anywhere the client isn't willing to run curtain wall-to-wall for the seal
Questions Worth Asking
Frequently asked
What actually makes a room dark?
Face-fit, floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall, with side returns that press the leading edges back against the wall. Fabric weight matters after that. Buy the best blockout fabric on a reveal-fit track and you'll still have three bright lines around the window at dawn.
Can I use a blockout on its own without a sheer in front?
Yes, and many bedrooms do. The trade-off is a single mode: closed for dark, open for glass. If you want a softened daylight setting during the day, add a sheer on a room-side track and you have three modes, not two. It's the reason we specify two tracks so often in bedrooms.
Does blockout mean total blackout?
In practice, no. Household blockout linings stop the vast majority of light through the cloth, but a domestic install always has some ambient light around the edges. A photographic dark room is a different specification. What a well-fitted blockout delivers is a room that reads properly dark for sleep, which is what almost everyone actually asks for.
Blockout lining, or blockout fabric?
Almost always separate lining behind a face fabric of your choice. It gives you the light seal without dictating how the curtain looks from the room. The alternative, a single-layer blockout-coated fabric, exists but limits the palette. We normally specify the lined version.
Next Step
Book a free measure & consultation
A 15-minute phone call first. Then, if it's a fit, we come and measure your blockout curtains and anything else you'd like specified at the same visit.
Book my free measure →