Window blinds, shades, shutters and drapery provide finishing design touches to rooms and address the all-important aspects of privacy and light control. As an investment that homeowners live with for many years, it’s important to make the right decision when choosing the style, color and function of such long-lasting design statements. It’s refreshing to be able to lean on someone who has experience designing and installing all types of custom window coverings. Andrea and Sean Zare are the husband-and-wife team behind family-owned Classic Blinds & Shutters, and they, along with their professional staff of window covering designers and installers, bring 30 years of experience in the industry to the Metro Atlanta area.
Not only is the staff knowledgeable and skilled in helping homeowners find the appropriate blinds and shades for their windows, the company carries the distinctive label of being a respected Hunter Douglas Gallery dealer. It can draw on the deep expertise and state-of-the-art automated products available through the well-known brand.
The Zares were first affiliated with Hunter Douglas in 1996 when they opened a Shop at Home business. With demand growing for high-quality window coverings and due to their success in the marketplace, the Zares decided that a showroom would be the best way to help local homeowners, so they opened their first Hunter Douglas Gallery showroom in Alpharetta in 2009. “There are not a lot of window covering showrooms in the Metro area with such extensive displays,” says Andrea Zare. “We now can offer the best of both worlds: We can take samples into our customers’ homes in a complimentary consultation to help them integrate the colors and designs of new window coverings with their rooms’ lighting and existing color palette, and we can invite them into the showroom where they can see how their chosen window covering will operate when it is installed.”
As a Hunter Douglas Gallery dealer, Classic Blinds & Shutters offers a complete shopping experience, with premium displays and a full line of the brand’s products, including the latest in smart-home solutions that most others in the industry do not have access to, such as Aura Illuminated shades. Aura shades feature LED lighting strips between the layers of the shade, allowing homeowners to change the amount of light in the room at any given time. The shades can replicate the sun at night or during an overcast, rainy day, and they can gradually increase the amount of light to help people wake up naturally. Another exclusive product is Pirouette Sheer shades, a product made of soft fabric that changes shape on demand. “As a Hunter Douglas Gallery dealer, we also have special fabrics that others cannot carry in their showrooms,” adds Zare.
Due to a high volume of customer requests and an increasingly busy company, Classic Blinds & Shutters opened its second showroom last year in Marietta, bringing the wide range of Hunter Douglas products to the Zares’ hometown. In both locations, homeowners are assured of access to the latest products, including highly coveted smart-home automated blinds and shades. In addition to showcasing Hunter Douglas products in their showrooms, the Zares also carry plantation shutters manufactured locally by another company owned by Sean Zare and custom drapery. The entire Classic Blinds & Shutters team participates in Hunter Douglas-certified professional development training each year, so they have the full knowledge of all products and how to customize and install them. “I’d dare to say we’re better educated than most any others in the industry,” Zare says.
Hunter Douglas Gallery dealers such as Classic Blinds & Shutters are at the forefront of home automation, providing the latest motorized shades and blinds that are controlled by remote, mobile device or voice commands. In addition to the latest technology, automated shades offer ease of installation, better energy efficiency, enhanced security and child safety since they do not have pull cords.
The Classic Blinds & Shutters experience is always fully custom, even with hard-to-fit windows such as those the company covered recently on a mega-yacht in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and for downtown condos and modern homes with large expanses of steel windows. “Tricky windows are no match for us,” Sean Zare says. “If there are product size limitations, we get creative by modifying installation to make up for any design limits.” With specific installation knowledge garnered with his hands-on work in the industry since 1993, Zare and his installation team are highly experienced in solving challenging installations.
For homeowners who want to pair their motorized and nonmotorized blinds and shades with custom draperies and curtains, the showrooms offer options in hundreds of fabric choices. When choosing custom drapery from Classic Blinds and Shutters, homeowners can customize the length, hardware and any top treatments, like valances and cornices, to lend additional color, style, texture, energy efficiency and privacy to their spaces. The company’s custom draperies are made from luxurious, durable fabrics. After homeowners select the fabrics in the colors, patterns and designs that match their existing home style and color palette, Classic Blinds & Shutters makes the custom drapery and curtains. They are measured and manufactured to fit specific windows, not made in generic lengths and heights. Unlike products sourced from a big-box store, homeowners don’t have to settle for what’s available but can order the exact colors, patterns and fits for their needs.
The showrooms also offer customized plantation shutters from their partner company, with the dependability and high value that wood window coverings bring to homes. The plantation shutters are manufactured locally and provided and installed by the same highly-trained team from Classic Blinds and Shutters.
While the showrooms work directly with homeowners, they also have an active to-the-trade program for designers and homebuilders. “We actually have three different trade programs to offer choices to match the way designers prefer to work,” Andrea Zare says.
The Zares want to provide an experience that doesn’t overwhelm homeowners when choosing, designing and installing new window coverings, and they strive to educate homeowners about optimizing energy efficiency and functionality. That was the whole point of opening Classic Blinds & Shutters—to remove all challenges and ease the process for homeowners to enjoy the value and beauty that custom window coverings can bring to their homes. *
Dana W. Todd is a professional writer specializing in interior design, real estate, luxury homebuilding, landscape design, architecture and art.
