How Much Do Blinds Cost for a Whole House in 2027? Vancouver Guide

In 2027, most Metro Vancouver homeowners should budget roughly $1,600 to $3,500 to fit a typical condo with custom manual blinds, $2,800 to $6,000 for a townhome, and $4,500 to $10,000 for a detached house. Choosing motorized blinds for the whole home usually adds 60% to 100% to those figures, depending on how many windows you automate.

Those ranges include free in-home measurement and professional installation. The final number depends on how many windows you have, how big they are, which fabrics you pick, and whether you motorize every window or only the hard-to-reach ones. This guide breaks down each of those factors so you can build a realistic budget before anyone visits your home.

Every whole-house estimate starts with the price of one window. For a standard bedroom window of about 36 by 48 inches, installed custom blinds in Vancouver typically start around $159 for a roller shade, $189 for 2-inch aluminum or faux wood Venetian blinds, $199 for zebra (day and night) blinds, $229 for cellular honeycomb shades or vertical blinds, and $249 for blackout blinds with side channels. Motorized versions of these styles generally start around $359 per window.

Larger windows cost more because they use more fabric and heavier hardware. A 72-inch living room window often costs 1.5 to 2 times the price of a standard bedroom window, and floor-to-ceiling glass or patio doors can cost 2 to 3 times as much. Premium fabrics — textured weaves, linen looks, dual-layer zebra fabrics and thermal blackout — typically add 10% to 30%.

A typical one or two-bedroom Vancouver condo has 6 to 10 windows, but they are often large. Towers in Yaletown, Coal Harbour, Brentwood and Metrotown usually have floor-to-ceiling glass in the living room and a sliding patio door to the balcony, which is where most of the budget goes.

A common condo setup is sheer or zebra blinds in the living room to keep the view while cutting glare, blackout roller shades in the bedrooms, and a roller shade or vertical blind on the balcony door. Many condo owners also choose a dual shade in the living room — a sheer solar layer for daytime and a blackout layer for night — on a single bracket.

Estimated whole-condo cost in 2027: $1,600 to $3,500 manual, or $3,200 to $6,500 fully motorized. Motorizing just the large living room windows, which is the most popular option, usually lands between $2,400 and $4,500.

Townhomes in Richmond, Burnaby, Coquitlam, Port Moody and Surrey typically have 12 to 18 windows spread across three floors, plus a patio door and sometimes a tall stairwell window. Windows are usually more standard in size than condo glass, so the cost per window is lower, but there are more of them.

A balanced townhome plan often uses zebra blinds in the main living area, blackout or cellular shades in the bedrooms, faux wood or aluminum Venetian blinds in the kitchen and bathrooms for moisture resistance, and a vertical blind or panel track on the patio door.

Estimated whole-townhome cost in 2027: $2,800 to $6,000 manual, or $5,500 to $11,000 fully motorized. A popular middle option is motorizing the stairwell and living room windows only, which typically adds $1,200 to $2,500 to the manual price.

A detached house in Vancouver, North Vancouver, Burnaby or the Tri-Cities usually has 18 to 30 windows, including large living room windows, bay windows, a sliding or French patio door, and often skylights or high windows above the entry. Newer homes and laneway builds tend to have bigger glass, which pushes the average cost per window up.

Detached homes benefit most from mixing styles room by room: cellular shades for insulation in older or colder rooms, blackout in the bedrooms, zebra or roller shades in the living and family rooms, and motorized shades on skylights and high windows that are impossible to reach by hand.

Estimated whole-house cost in 2027: $4,500 to $10,000 manual, or $9,000 to $19,000 fully motorized. Most families motorize 30% to 50% of their windows — the large and hard-to-reach ones — which usually brings the total to $6,500 to $13,000.

Manual blinds are the most affordable way to cover a whole house. Today's manual blinds are cordless or use a child-safe continuous loop or wand, so they are safe for kids and pets and still easy to use every day. For standard windows you can reach easily, manual is often all you need.

Motorized blinds cost more up front, usually $200 to $350 extra per window, but they solve problems manual blinds can't. They raise and lower large or heavy shades with one button, reach skylights and high windows, open on a schedule at sunrise and close in the afternoon heat, and work with Alexa, Google Home and Apple HomeKit. Battery-powered motors can be recharged with a hidden solar panel, so there is no wiring and little upkeep.

Vancouver's weather makes scheduling especially useful. During the six grey, rainy months you want blinds open to let in every bit of daylight, and during the hot summer weeks you want south and west windows to close automatically before the room heats up — even when nobody is home.

Our advice: choose manual for small and easy-to-reach windows, and motorize the windows that are large, high, hard to reach or exposed to strong afternoon sun. That mix gives you most of the convenience for a much smaller budget.

Number and size of windows: this is the biggest factor. Two homes with the same square footage can differ by thousands of dollars depending on how much glass they have.

Fabric choice: basic light-filtering fabrics are the most affordable, while premium textures, thermal blackout and dual-layer zebra fabrics cost more. Mixing premium fabric in the main rooms and standard fabric in secondary rooms keeps costs down.

Special shapes and hard-to-reach windows: skylights, arched windows, corner windows and two-storey glass need special hardware or motorization and are quoted separately.

Add-ons: side channels for full blackout, fascia or cassette covers, and smart hubs for voice control all add to the total. Ordering every room at once usually costs less than doing one room at a time, because measurement and installation are handled in one visit.

Online estimates are useful for budgeting, but the only way to get an exact number is to measure every window. Our free in-home consultation covers Vancouver, Burnaby, Richmond, North Vancouver, New Westminster, the Tri-Cities, Chilliwack and Kelowna. A designer brings fabric samples and motor demos, measures each window, and gives you a written quote during the same visit.

All our blinds are custom made in Canada and installed by our own team, typically about two weeks after measuring. If you already have a quote from another company, share it with us — we aim to match the same quality at a better price.