The Shade Store

Update 2016-​02-​05: Megan from the Shade Store customer service reached out to me about the problems with the shades. She offered to re-​do the slider with 5 panels, rather than three. The new vertical shades arrived about a week later and are much better.
So, I bumped them up one star for good customer service.
Overpriced Junk!
We worked with the shade store in downtown Santa Barbara. We had visited Hope Depot and Lowes, and just didn’t find the right material we liked. The Shade Store appeared to have good quality products in their showroom. We received the products in two shipments. One had the roman shades. Those installed easily, but there was definitely workmanship flaws: 1) the kitchen shade was assembled incorrectly, so that the drawstrings were not even, it would only sit crooked. I had to unknot the strings and readjust to get it even. 2) The drawstrings were generally the right length, but the material was too long, which resulted in the shades not sitting flat.. These were supposed to be FLAT Roman shades. 3) The drawstring attachment to the magnetic break away connectors is too close to the shade, when lowered completely. This results in the breakaway opening prematurely. 4) We ordered a shade for our slider. 84″ wide, which allowed for about 18″ overlap on the side past the slider glass. The idea was that when the shade is opened, it would be mostly past the glass, covering the 18″ of wall. Jenna, our sales person recommended that we let the factory decide how many panels for the 84″ with, and promised to call us back once the factory made their decision. BIG MISTAKE! The factory decided to go the easiest way possible, raw 30″ fabric, with no edging. So, with three panels, ¹⁄₃ of the glass is covered, plus 18″ of wall. Jenna never called us back to say there would be 30″ panels. For a slider of that width, there should have been at least 5 panels.
In short: Poor quality, poor workmanship, overpriced junk. I would not recommend The Shade Store shades to anyone. We are so glad, that we did only one room holding off for the rest of the house, until we saw the quality of the first order.
12/​28/​2015 Update: I just saw a reply on Unilocal from someone at the store, saying he would follow up??? I never received any call or email from them. I stand by my assessment. Cheap overpriced junk.

Great retail store but that’s where it stops. The factory is a nightmare to deal with. Shades are not cut properly and valences were not build or sized as promised. Follow up and resolution is very painful. We have been trying to get four of the six shades recut for over six weeks with no results. They promote custom blinds but their capabilities fall way short. This has been the most frustrating company I have had the experience to work with in 30 years.
Still waiting…

Found The Shade Store online. Browsed their beautiful website and found their website design was shopper friendly. Their samples are free and the sample size is large so I could see the color and textures perfectly. Jennifer, from The Shade Store, called me and gave excellent ideas and suggestions. I was then sent over 100 samples. That’s when I found two fabrics and their prices would match my budget. My husband and I read the directions carefully on measuring but I would walk that through a designer at the store. The shades came and we installed ourselves. Absolutely beautiful. The hardware and quality are fantastic.
Thank you Jennifer!!!

The gorgeous (but not «snooty») showroom drew me in, but the helpfulness of the staff (I worked with Craig) made me feel that I had come to the right place for our bedroom blinds. Our windows are pretty high, so I felt I needed to talk to Craig about long pull chains of some kind. He suggested raising and lowering these blinds via a battery-​powered «clicker» (no need to bring in an electrician to wire them up), and now that the blinds are in place and working PERFECTLY, I know that he was right. Our blinds were shipped in just a few days, and were very securely packaged (with printed-​in-​the-​USA instructions that made perfect sense), so we had our blinds installed and rolling up and down with the push of a button in no time at all. These folks are new, but they deserve to be around a long time.

Incredible service and amazing showroom to select exactly what you want. I worked with Janna there. She’s an expert in window blinds and is meticulous about ensuring that it’s right. I’ll post photos later. They also offer the same online pricing deals. In the past I order online myself and have had good success. But seeing your options and getting expert input is a blessing.