I was able to find shades that were 1" wider than the actual window. It still let in light on the sides so I went to a fabric store and got some room darkening backing for curtains and just velcroed them to the wall ~5" wide slivers to the side of the windows, overlapping on the roman shade. You can't see if because I have curtain panels that "frame" the window and sit right over it. Hopefully that makes sense.

We have an inside mount and it does let in light on the sides. But the room is still pretty dark, like not pitch black, but darker than miniblinds or a non blackout shade would be.

We have inside mount, blackout roman shades, and yes some light does seep in from the sides. The ones we had custom made by someone on etsy are better than the custom shades we ordered from a window covering store because the shades were constructed so that the shade velcros to the front of the mounting bar (rather than wrapping around the mounting bar). This allows the shade to sit flush with the front of the frame but extend slightly beyond the edge of the mounting bar, if I had understood the construction beforehand I probably could have asked to have the shades made just a bit wider (keeping the mounting bar the same width) to better cover the slight gaps along the edges. The shades we have that are constructed such that the material wraps around the mounting bar are constrained to the width of the mounting bar, which has to be just slightly narrower than the window frame for an inside mount, so those let in a bit more light. Also if you live in an old house, you may discover (as we did) that the window frame may be wider at certain points, which will definitely lead to light seeping in around a roman shade with an inside mount. An outside mount will allow you to extend the shade further beyond the edge of the window, but it may not completely eliminate the problem since the shade will no longer be flush with the face of the window due to the outside mounting hardware (we don't have any outside mount roman shades, I'm curious from someone who has outside mount shades whether this is an issue?)

I'm thinking about roman shades for my DD's room, and I think I'm going to do outside mount to block out the most light. Just something to consider.

If you do an inside mount, most likely it will let in a little light. If you want it dark, do an outside mount.

Anonymous wrote:It you measure to exceed the flush sides of the inner window; and don't mind the look of the blind extending to the out window, roman shades will generally be fine. Are you ordering them to measure? Can you order them out of the box instead?

Do you mean to order them out of the box so they are bigger than the window?

It you measure to exceed the flush sides of the inner window; and don't mind the look of the blind extending to the out window, roman shades will generally be fine. Are you ordering them to measure? Can you order them out of the box instead?

Was thinking of getting these for use as blackout shades, with the optional blackout liner. Will they work?

http://www.blindster.com/roman-shades/cordless-top-down-bottom-up-roman-shades/