Venetian blinds for a house with proportions worth respecting.

A roller either covers the window or it doesn't. A venetian steers the light itself — tilt up for a glare-free room with the view still in it, tilt down for privacy from the road without losing all the daylight, close flat when you actually want the room dark. On a ridge where the sun swings hard across a single afternoon, that hour-by-hour control matters more than it does on a flat suburban stand.

Timber & bamboo — the heritage natural

50mm basswood or bamboo slats read as "real material" in a way plastic and aluminium never quite manage, which is why they're the default recommendation for sash windows, studies and any room where the original joinery is part of the point.

• Suit deep-reveal sash windows and panelled studies particularly well — the slat width matches older window proportions better than a modern narrow-slat aluminium blind.
• Quality lacquer handles normal household humidity, but we'll steer steam-heavy bathrooms toward aluminium instead.
• Timber is heavier than aluminium, so very wide Westcliff bay windows sometimes need splitting into two blinds or ladder-tape support — we'll flag that at the measure, not after.

Aluminium — the moisture champion

Where a room runs damp — bathrooms, kitchens, the scullery — aluminium is simply the more sensible material, and it comes in a wide enough colour range, including wood-look finishes, to still sit comfortably in an older home.

• 25mm slats are the crisp, most-fitted option; 50mm gives a bolder look with fewer lines across a tall window.
• Handles humidity without the lacquer concerns timber has, and costs less to start.
• Motorised tilt is available on the premium lines, useful for high or hard-to-reach windows in double-volume rooms.

A roller cassette that ignores a hundred-year-old reveal looks wrong the day it's fitted — a venetian, cut to the actual opening, doesn't.

Reading the cost off the window

Aluminium sits entry-to-mid, timber runs mid-to-premium, and the fair way to say it is by the square metre of finished blind, fitted. A 25 mm or 50 mm aluminium slat on a wand or cord: R1,000–R1,500 a square metre. Give it a motorised tilt and that becomes R2,500–R3,600. Fifty-millimetre basswood: R1,600–R2,600 a square metre by hand, R3,000–R4,500 on a motor, with lacquer and ladder tape pushing you up the band.

A landing window does not come out at a third of the price of a bay, because the headrail, the brackets and the hour on the ladder do not shrink with it — small openings carry a minimum charge. And none of the above is your quote. That gets written window by window after the free measure, before a slat is cut.

Fitting venetians across the ridge suburbs

Sash-window studies in Houghton Estate and Saxonwold, panelled dining rooms in Forest Town, and the mixed old-and-new joinery of Parktown North — timber or aluminium, measured to the actual reveal in each.