Redi Shade: A Review of the Range

This is a review of the range rather than one shade, because the range is how you actually shop it: the same no-tools mounting idea sold in paper and in fabric, at four light levels, and the choice between them is what people get wrong.

The idea, and why it works in a rental

Every shade here mounts inside the window opening with no drill, no screws and no brackets. The paper shades peel and stick to the frame. The fabric Easy Lift shades sit inside the reveal with a cordless lift mechanism. Both trim to width at home with scissors or a utility knife.

The consequence for a renter is that the only surface involved is the window casing, not the wall -- and a shade that comes off the casing leaves you dealing with painted trim rather than painted drywall. That is a meaningfully smaller risk, though not zero: trim is still paint, often gloss over wood, and it lifts the same way if it is fresh or if the shade is pulled off at an angle rather than warmed and peeled slowly.

The measurement that decides everything

Before width, before color, before light level: measure the depth of your window reveal, from the glass to the front face of the frame. The published requirement for the fabric shades is 1-1/4 inches minimum, sitting flush at 1-1/2 inches.

Below 1-1/4 inches no inside-mounted shade in this range fits, whatever the width says. That is common on aluminum-framed windows, on windows with deep sills but shallow reveals, and in a lot of older conversions. It causes more returns in this category than every other specification combined, and Redi Shade is one of the few makers that tells you the number in advance.

Paper against fabric: the real trade

Both reach the same published 99 percent on their blackout versions, so the choice is made on everything else, and it is a sharper choice than the price difference suggests.

The paper shades are a fraction of the price, come six to a pack, and can be mounted outside the frame -- which, because an inside mount always leaks light at the sides, means the cheap paper shade can actually produce a darker room than the expensive fabric one. They raise with clips rather than a lift mechanism. And they are paper: they crease, they tear at the clip points, and after a year they look like a temporary measure that became permanent.

The fabric Easy Lift shades buy three things: a cordless lift mechanism instead of clips, finished end caps instead of a cut paper edge, and in the cellular version a 9/16 inch honeycomb that traps an air layer. In a rental with single glazing that last one is a comfort feature as well as a light one. They are inside mount only, so they cannot use the outside-mount trick.

For a one-year lease, or for covering every window in an empty apartment in an afternoon, the paper shades are the better buy. For a room you look at every day over a longer tenancy, the fabric ones are.

Where the range falls short

Room darkening is not blackout, and it sells next to it. The room-darkening shade publishes "block a majority of light" with no percentage, at a similar price to the blackout version and in a color that photographs better. It is the single most common wrong purchase in the range. The maker is not the one implying otherwise -- it is right there on the label -- but the products sit side by side and people read the category name rather than the claim.

The bracket publishes no load. The Simple Slide bracket is the cleverest thing here: a three-dollar pair of peel-and-stick brackets that turns an ordinary stock roller shade into a no-drill one. On a component whose only job is to carry a rolled shade, no weight limit is published at all. Keep it to a light stock shade.

99 percent is about the fabric, not the window. This is the limitation buyers feel most and it is inherent to inside mounting rather than specific to Redi Shade. An inside-mounted shade sits within the opening and leaves a gap up each side. In a west-facing bedroom in June that gap is a bright line up each edge regardless of what the fabric blocks. We take that apart properly in best no-drill blackout blinds.

What we could not compare it against

Honestly: not much, and that is the finding. Achim's 1-2-3 Shade is a real, widely sold cordless vinyl pleated shade that competes directly with the paper shades here, and the manufacturer's own site publishes no size, trim range, mount depth or light-control figure for it that we could retrieve. We do not rank it, for the same reason this whole category went unranked until Redi Shade.

The same applies to clamp-bracket blinds generally. They wedge inside the frame, which makes them exactly as fit-sensitive as a tension rod, and none we found publishes the reveal depth or frame width they need.

The verdict

Redi Shade earns its place by documenting itself. In a category where almost nobody publishes a fit range or a light figure, this range publishes both, and that alone makes it the one we would buy from.

Buy the paper blackout, mounted outside the frame, if the requirement is a dark bedroom on a budget -- it is genuinely the darkest result available here. Buy the cellular blackout if you want it dark and finished-looking, and plan on a curtain over it for the edges. Buy the pleated light-filtering shade for daytime privacy in a living room. Do not buy the room-darkening version expecting blackout.

The full ranked comparison against the rest of the category is in best no-drill blinds.