George and Janice made seven Roman shades out of Sunbrella fabric for an open porch. There are no glass windows in this room, just screens. Here is George's letter: 

Dear Terrell,
Here are some photos of seven Roman shades that my wife and I made for our cottage porch in Central Massachusetts. Neither Janice nor I had ever made any Roman shades before, but thanks to your excellent educational website, the shades came out great and the cost was a small fraction of what it might have been. Each shade was custom made to the various opening widths, ranging from 30" to 7-feet wide. They are all 4-feet high, except the door. We are sending you these pictures as a thank you for all the work and knowledge that you put into your website.

We needed something to keep the rain and snow out of the open porch. There are no windows, only screens. In the past, in the winter we put up plastic storm windows and took them down in the spring. That left the porch exposed to the rain all summer long. This year it will only be the shades, no plastic storm windows. We are hoping that the Roman shades will protect the porch year-round. So far (October 2006) the shades have been up for 2 months and are working fine. We leave them closed when we are not at the cottage, and open them when we are there.

It takes about 2 minutes to open all 7 of them. It's so simple that a 5-year old child has opened them. It will be interesting to see how they do in New England winter storms. The porch stays dry. We used Sunbrella, a fabric that is designed for outdoor uses such as awnings and boat covers. We designed small wood latches to keep the shades in place when the wind blows. We used 1/2" PVC plastic pipe for the bottom rod. It is heavy enough and impervious to the weather. We did not use battens. Thanks again for the great website. I had never even heard of Roman shades before coming across you website.

An interior view with the shades closed is shown in the photograph at the right. Note the wood "latches" at the bottoms of the shades to prevent the wind from blowing the shades in. 

A closer interior view of the lowered shades is shown at the left.

The photograph below in an interior view with the shades open.

These photographs below show a close-up of the latches in the open (left) and closed (right) positions.

George used a different kind of wood latch for the screen door shade, as the photographs below show.

Since these were "functional" shades, rather than a design statement, I'm sure that George and Janice don't mind the fact that you can see the lifting system (the cord locks and pulleys) from the outside of the porch. However, they could have hidden the hardware from view by stapling a short hemmed piece of the Sunbrella fabric on the back side of the board. You would still be able to see the lift rings and cord, since they used white for both of these items.  

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