Blockout roller blinds, Melbourne

What a fair price actually looks like

For a three-bedroom single-storey home we fit blockout rollers throughout for $1,200 to $1,800, supplied and installed. A four-bedroom double-storey usually lands at $2,400 to $2,900 — more glazing, often a void or stairwell to deal with. For a single larger window — say a 1865 × 2100 mm bedroom or living-room glazing — expect $300 to $500 for a quality fit.

We've seen quotes well over $1,000 for the same single window. That's outside fair. If you're staring at one of those, get a second written quote.

What moves the price within these ranges is straightforward: how many windows, the fabric grade, whether you go spring/chain or motorised, recess versus face fit (your builder's window reveal sometimes forces the decision), and whether you want side channels for genuine edge-to-edge blackout.

Why some roller blinds last twenty years and some don't survive three

A quality custom roller blind in a Melbourne home should last fifteen to twenty years on normal residential use. A good-quality mid-tier blind sits at five to ten. Hardware-store and DIY-online product typically starts showing wear inside the first twelve to thirty-six months — fabric edges curl, plastic backing flakes, chain mechanism gets sloppy.

We hear from buyers all the time who've had this happen. The reasons are always the same three things: the fabric is too lightweight to hold its shape over a daily up-and-down cycle, the bracket-and-tube componentry is too cheap to stay true, or the install was done by someone working off a tape measure for the first time in a window that isn't square. New-build windows are almost never perfectly square — and a poorly tensioned blind in an out-of-square frame pulls itself apart over a few years.

Off-the-shelf rollers have their place — rentals, garages, short-term fit-outs. But for a new build you're going to live in, the cost difference between a cheap blind and a quality blind disappears the second you have to replace the cheap one. Run the math on a four-bedroom house: $800 to $1,500 for a cheap whole-house fit-out, replaced three to five times across fifteen years, is $3,200 to $6,000 plus the hassle each time. Our quality fit at $2,400 to $2,900 is done once and stays done.

What we actually fit

Every roller we install uses heavier-weight fabric — you can feel the difference in the showroom; the cheap-end fabrics are noticeably thin to the touch. We use componentry rated for daily residential cycling, not the once-a-week light-use componentry that fails in dense-use rooms like the master bedroom.

The blind is installed to a tolerance the fabric can hold over its full life, and if anything goes wrong inside that life, you ring us — not a faceless online warranty desk. That's the difference between buying a custom blind from an installer and buying a box off a shelf.

When to choose blockout, when to layer with sheer

If a room only needs daytime privacy with no need for full darkness, a sunscreen roller does the job and lets you see out. If you need full darkness only some of the time and clean daylight the rest, a double roller (sunscreen on top, blockout below) gives you both on a single bracket.

If you want the soft drape of curtains plus the clean privacy of a roller, layer a sheer curtain over a blockout roller — that combination is what most of our growth-corridor customers end up with in their main bedrooms. The roller does the darkness; the sheer softens the look.

Builder packages and new-build buyers

If you're building in one of Melbourne's growth corridors and your builder has offered a window-furnishings allowance, read the spec carefully before accepting it. In our experience, builder-supplied window furnishings tend to be the cheapest budget product fitted at a premium price — and they're the most common source of the “blinds failed within two years” complaint.

We've written a longer piece on this: Are window furnishings included in your new build? It covers what to budget, how to handle the builder's allowance, and when to book the in-home measure.