Spiffy Spools Lining Options for Curtains & Roman Shades

Lining refers to the fabric stitched at the back of the curtains or roman shades for added protection and insulation.

Lining your window treatments is highly recommended as it ensures their longevity and protects them from fading due to over-exposure to sunlight. Besides, lining makes your window treatment more insulating and helps you save money spent on artificial heating/cooling off the house. It also contributes aesthetically as the second layer helps the face fabric to drape well – curtains form plusher pleats and roman shades form neater folds.

Please note that our linings are stitched on the back of drapes/shades. They are *not* provided as a separate, removable liners.

Spiffy Spools offers linings in two varieties.

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PRIVACY LINING

This is a standard, drapery weight, white polyester lining that helps to cut the harsh glare of the sun, but cannot aid in room-darkening or sound absorption beyond the degree that any fabric can. 

BLACKOUT LINING

This is a chemically treated polyester fabric that is able to resist light inflow to a considerable degree. With a blackout lining at the back, the curtain or shade performs as well at room-darkening as a blackout fabric itself. Hence, adding blackout lining behind a non-blackout fabric helps for room-darkening, and its thick weave also muffles sound. Our blackout linings are highly effective and therefore recommended for bedrooms, nurseries, home theatre curtains and any other areas where you’d like room darkening.

However, please note that our blackout linings are not 100% blackout. While they will darken a room considerably, bright daylight may diffuse on the surface and be visible like a soft glow on the frontage. 

Our blackout linings come in three colors – white, beige and gray – offering clients plenty of bandwidth to appease any decor style, especially if the rear side of the window treatment will be visible to an adjoining room or an outdoor living area. The white lining toes in line with the bright and airy aesthetics of casual spaces and decor styles like farmhouse, coastal and Scandinavian, and comes across as a privacy lining at first glance due to its color. The beige lining is preferred for warm-colored face fabrics and the gray lining for cool-colored face fabrics for better color coordination. Overall, the blackout linings offer three neutral options that are incredibly versatile and can be teamed with all the drapery fabrics in our collection.

Other colors may be made available on special order requests only if advised ahead of the order.

White Blackout Lining

Pale Beige Blackout Lining

Pale Gray Blackout Lining

TIPS TO MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR BLACKOUT LINING

If achieving a high degree of darkness is a key priority, please do keep the following in mind:

• Thick, densely woven fabrics are able to offer additional ‘support’ to the lining in the back. Therefore, the same blackout lining may ‘seem’ to be more effective when used behind fabrics with thick, tight weaves like velvets and heavier cottons, as compared to when sewn behind a loosely woven face fabric like most linens or sheers.
• Similarly, a darker front fabric will add to the lining’s effectiveness. Light fabrics will naturally reflect more light while darker ones will absorb and block. 
• When choosing your drapery heading style, opt for a style that feature no holes and gaps through which light can pass like pinch pleats, rod pockets, or back tabs. 
• Use the hook and eye method to close the gap on the sides of your curtains from which light can leak.
• Place the drapery pole at least 6 inches above the trim to avoid light leaks from the top. Also extend the pole to about 6 inches on both sides of the window to seal light leaks from the sides. Furthermore, for best results, get the curtains stitched to floor length as some light leakage is inevitable with sill length or cafe style short curtains.
• Similarly, if you’re opting for outside-mounted roman shades, extend them a few inches on all sides to increase coverage and minimise light leaks. 
• Avoid lining your sheer curtains and shades because you may miss out on the beauty and benefits of their translucence, and blackout lining will ‘seem’ to be less effective because the lining will not be getting any support from the thin face fabric.
• Drapes will typically be more effective than roman shades. This is because of two reasons. One, drapery has extra fabric for pleats and gather which helps to block more light, while roman shades feature one layer of flat frontage. Second, light leaks from the edges of the shades are often more intrusive than as seen with drapery. 

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