Basement Window Treatments in Kansas City: Ideas That Work
Small windows, low light, and egress rules. Here's what we put in Kansas City basements and why.
Basements are some of our favorite projects, and that’s because no two of them do the same job. One family’s lower level has a ball bouncing off the wall every ten minutes. The next has a pool table and a built-in bar. The next is a full theater room where somebody is very serious about glare on the screen. Basement window treatments have to answer for how the room actually gets used, not just how the window looks from the outside.
Why Basement Windows Play by a Different Set of Rules
Upstairs, choosing a window covering is a light-control decision. Downstairs, it’s a light-budget decision. You only have so much daylight coming in, and every single thing you mount in that opening takes some of it away.
A few things about Kansas City basements specifically:
- The windows are small and high. A lot of the ones we measure are only about 16 inches tall. On a window that short, a shade that stacks four inches when raised has just eaten a quarter of your glass.
- The humidity is real. Our clay soils hold water for weeks after a spring storm. Then summer hits, warm humid air works its way into a cool below-grade room, and it condenses. If you’ve ever seen your basement windows fog up, that’s what’s happening. Real wood doesn’t love that. Poly shutters, faux wood blinds, and synthetic shade fabrics do just fine.
- There’s usually an egress window in the mix. Those come with rules, and we’ll get to those below.
- The room is doing three jobs at once. Playroom on one end, bar on the other, TV in the middle. Same floor, three different answers.
The Best Blinds for Basement Windows, Room by Room
Instead of picking one product and putting it everywhere, look at what each zone is actually for.
Playrooms and rec rooms
Durability wins here. We put a lot of honeycomb shades in kid spaces because they hold their structure when they get hit with a ball. They pop back. Most other products don’t. They also come cordless, which matters in a room full of kids.
Plantation shutters are the other favorite. No cords, and they take years of abuse. There’s a quieter reason we like them too: the louvers are wide enough that a kid can see out just fine without jamming their hands between the slats to open them further. Narrow louvers invite that. Wide ones don’t.
More on that in our child-safe window treatments guide.
Bars, game rooms, and lower-level lounges
Different room, different mood. With a built-in bar or a pool table down there, we look at basement window coverings that read warmer and darker.
- Stained wood shutters for depth and a finished, architectural feel
- Woven wood shades in grass and reed textures for that den nuance nothing else quite matches
- Wood blinds with cloth tapes, our go-to for a speakeasy look and badly underused
Cloth tapes are a small detail that changes the whole character of a blind. Worth seeing in person.
Home theaters and media rooms
Two settings, nothing in between: wide open, or locked down.
We keep coming back to honeycomb shades with LightLock side channels, U-shaped tracks that run down both edges of the window and swallow the light that leaks around a normal blackout shade. It’s the difference between pretty dark and actually 100 percent dark. More on how that works here.
Motorization makes it better. Most basements only have a few windows, so you want them working when you need light. One button and everything goes up. Another, and the game is on with no glare on the screen. If glare is the main headache, see our glare reduction guide.
Basement bedrooms and home offices
Bedrooms downstairs need room darkening first, style second. For offices, we often go top-down bottom-up, dropping the shade from the top to pull daylight in while the lower half stays covered. On a window where somebody’s feet walk past at eye level, that’s a genuinely useful trick.
Egress Windows Are Where Basement Window Coverings Get Tricky
Got a bedroom or finished living space downstairs? Then you have an egress window. Those are the small, high ones sitting in a window well, and they’re the trickiest openings in the house.
Two things make them different:
- Code. The opening has to stay clear and has to open from the inside without keys or tools.
- Light. They’re tiny already. Every inch a raised shade covers is daylight you lose.
What works:
- Honeycomb shades. They stack to about two inches. On a 16-inch window, that’s a huge difference.
- Cordless or motorized. Always. See below for why.
What doesn't:
- Shutters. We install plenty of them, just not here. The frame and louvers eat too much space and too much light.
- Anything corded. Raise a corded shade on a short window, and the cord can hang lower than the shade itself, dangling past the frame. It looks bad, and it’s one more thing to catch on in an emergency.
Basement Window Shades and Basement Window Blinds, Side by Side
| Option | Best for | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| Honeycomb shades | Egress windows, playrooms, theaters, insulation | Choose the right opacity; they range from sheer to full blackout |
| Honeycomb with LightLock | Media rooms, basement bedrooms | Side channels mount inside the frame, so we measure carefully |
| Poly and hybrid shutters | Rec rooms, bars, larger basement windows | Too bulky for small egress openings |
| Woven wood shades | Bars, lounges, adding warmth and texture | Add a liner if you need privacy or darkness |
| Wood blinds with cloth tapes | Speakeasy and den looks | Better in drier, finished basements than damp ones |
| Faux wood blinds | Damp or partly finished basements | Heavier than honeycomb when stacked |
| Roller shades | Clean modern look, tight budgets | Less insulating than cellular |
Not sure which direction to go? That’s genuinely what the in-home consultation is for.
Why Kansas City Homeowners Bring Us Their Lower Level
- We’ve been doing this here for 30 years. Four locations across the metro, roughly 1,500 Google reviews, and a 4.9 average. We know what Johnson County basements look like because we’ve been in thousands of them.
- We measure in the room, not from a photo. Stack height, frame depth, window well conditions, and how much daylight you’re actually working with. All of it changes the recommendation.
- We’ll talk you out of the wrong product. If you call asking for shutters on your egress window, we’re going to explain why that’s going to cost you light and suggest something better. Our job is the finished room, not the invoice.
- Our installers handle below-grade conditions. Block walls, shallow frames, tile-in windows, and the odd out-of-square opening are normal for us. Professional installation is part of what you’re buying.
- You can see and touch everything first. Cloth tapes, woven wood textures, and honeycomb opacities all photograph poorly and look completely different in person. Come by any of our showrooms.
- We’re still here afterward. If something needs adjusting a year in, our service team handles it.
How a Basement Project Comes Together
1
Free in-home consultation
We come to you because a basement has to be seen in its own light. What’s the room actually for, is there an egress window in the mix, how much daylight are we working with, and does one product cover the whole floor or does the playroom end need something different from the bar end? Book a free consultation.
2
Measure and quote
We bring samples so you can hold a fabric up to your own window and see what it does to a room that starts out dim. Then we measure for stack height, not just width and drop, because on a 16-inch egress window, the inches a shade eats when raised decide the whole recommendation. You get the quote before anything is ordered.
3
Professional installation
Basement openings are rarely square and rarely standard. Block walls, shallow frames, tile-in windows, and window wells are normal for us, so our own installation team handles every job and answers to the person who measured it.
4
Final walkthrough
Before we leave, we check that nothing blocks the egress opening, and we show you how each treatment operates, including pairing the remotes if you went motorized. If anything ever needs adjusting, you call us directly.
Basement Window Treatment FAQs
Do basement windows really need coverings?
Yes, in most cases. Below-grade windows sit at ground level outside, which means anyone walking past has a direct sightline in, and bare glass makes a finished basement feel unfinished. Coverings also add insulation to windows that are often older single-pane units.
What's the best window covering for a small basement window?
Cordless honeycomb shades, almost every time. They stack to just a couple of inches, so they preserve your glass, insulate well, and there’s no cord hanging out of the frame.
Can you put blinds on an egress window?
You can, as long as the covering doesn’t obstruct the opening and can be moved aside easily without tools. We recommend cordless or motorized honeycomb shades for exactly this reason and avoid bulky products like shutters on those openings.
Will blinds get moldy in a Kansas City basement?
The right materials won’t. Poly shutters, faux wood blinds, and synthetic shade fabrics handle damp conditions well. If your basement runs above 55 percent humidity, a dehumidifier is still worth having regardless of what’s on the windows.
How do I make a small basement window look bigger?
Mount the covering above the frame rather than inside it, and keep the fabric light in color. A wider headrail with a shade that stacks tight at the top reads as a taller window.
Are blackout shades worth it in a basement?
For a media room or a basement bedroom, absolutely. Standard blackout fabric still leaks light around the edges, which is why we use honeycomb shades with LightLock side channels when someone wants true darkness.
What do basement window treatments cost?
Let's Get Your Lower Level Sorted
Whether you’re finishing a basement from scratch or fixing the shades somebody put in ten years ago, we’d like to see the space. Bring us photos, bring us measurements, or just tell us what’s not working. Give us a call at any of our four Kansas City area locations, or book a free in-home consultation, and we’ll help you choose basement window treatments that make the room work as hard as the rest of your house.
Overland Park 913.378.0888 | Shawnee 913.631.0088 | Lee’s Summit 816.347.0885 | Kansas City North 816.468.4433