Blockout Roller Blinds
A single flat blockout sheet on a tube — full dark for a farmhouse bedroom, full quiet for a nursery.
Explore
Simondium · between Paarl and Franschhoek · Cape Winelands
The orchard view, without the late-afternoon glare.
Made-to-measure blinds, external shading and motorised awnings for the farmhouses and guest cottages strung along this stretch of the R45. Simondium doesn't have a Main Street, so we come to the farm gate instead.
Free in-home measure and a written, per-window quote
Motorised, wind-sensored shading for the evening air off Simonsberg
Child-safe as standard — no dangling cords
About this stretch of road
Simondium isn't really a town.
There's no Main Street here to photograph. Simondium is a hamlet — the upper point of a triangle between Stellenbosch, Paarl and Franschhoek — where the R45 runs past farm gate after farm gate, orchard block after vineyard block, with the Simondium church — its Huguenot congregation granted permission to build here in 1691 — standing in for a town centre because nothing else really does the job.
We work every window on that stretch the same way: a free in-home measure at the farm, not a showroom fitting. Whether it's a homestead from the hamlet's oldest working farms or a guest cottage finished last year, the consultant who comes out measures the actual opening in the actual light, and writes the quote from that — not from a shelf of standard sizes.
The range
Twelve products, one road.
Every farm along here carries at least two building eras under one roof — we stock for both.
Sunscreen Roller Blinds
Mesh fabric that cuts the glare off an orchard-facing kitchen window without losing the rows outside.
Explore
Day & Night Blinds
Alternating sheer and solid bands, tuned hour by hour for a farm-cottage lounge that faces the road.
Ask about this
Aluminium Venetian Blinds
Powder-coated slats that shrug off steam and splash — the honest choice for a farmhouse bathroom.
Ask about this
Timber Venetian Blinds
50mm basswood slats for a homestead's original sash windows — warm, and built for a deep-set reveal.
Explore
Cellular Honeycomb Blinds
Hexagonal air cells insulate a guest cottage or nursery against both the summer heat and the winter damp.
Explore
Vertical & Panel Blinds
Wide fabric panels on a track for the sliding doors a new farm cottage tends to be built around.
Ask about this
Concealed & Recessed Blinds
Fabric drops from a slot in the ceiling — for the steel-framed glazing on a newer tasting room or cottage.
Ask about this
Skylight & Shaped Blinds
For the arched loft window or gable glass an older farmhouse's roofline occasionally hides.
Ask about this
Roller Shutters
External aluminium slats that roll down over a west-facing facade for heat, glare and blackout.
A shading product, not a security-rated one — ask separately if security shutters are what you need.
Ask about this
Folding-Arm Awnings
Retracts off a stoep table in winter sun, extends for summer shade — motorised with a wind sensor as standard.
Explore
Zip Screens
Zipped mesh channels that close in a braai room against the evening air off Simonsberg.
Ask about this
Two eras, one farm
The homestead and the cottage.
How we specify for Simondium
No town centre, three mountains, two building eras.
01 A hollow, not a valley
Simondium sits tucked against three mountains at once: the Klein-Drakensteinberg to the east, Paarl Mountain to the north, and Simonsberg immediately behind the hamlet — a three-sided enclosure the older guidebooks describe as "nestling in a picturesque valley." That shelters the farm gates here from the daily Cape Doctor more than Klapmuts gets on its open crossroads a short drive west. But the same slope that blocks the wind by day drains cool air off Simonsberg most evenings — a mountain breeze, not a sea one.
02 Same sun-path arithmetic, harder-working glass
At this latitude the sun sits close to 80° overhead at midsummer and drops to roughly 32° at midwinter — the same regional arithmetic as Paarl and Groot Drakenstein. What's specific to Simondium is how much of the glass here faces an orchard or a vineyard block rather than a street: west-facing kitchen and living-room windows catch the late-summer afternoon sun hardest, and nobody wants to lose that view to solve it.
03 Two building eras on one title deed
Every working farm along this road tends to carry two kinds of window. The older homestead — Babylonstoren's whitewashed 1692 buildings are the best-known example, but the pattern repeats on smaller farms all the way to the church — has small, deep-set sash windows in thick lime-washed walls. The guest cottage or tasting room built alongside it, as more of these farms have added accommodation over the last two decades, tends to be steel-framed glass looking straight down a row of vines. We spec them differently: an inside-mount timber venetian that respects the old reveal without a facade fixing, and a roller or ceiling-recessed system for the new glass that stops the heat before it reaches the room.
04 Outside, always with a wind sensor
Every folding-arm awning, zip screen or external product we fit here is motorised with a wind sensor as standard — sized for an occasional evening downdraught off Simonsberg rather than a daily coastal gust, but real enough that an awning left out on the wrong evening is the one that gets damaged. It's a smaller, gentler version of the same mountain-drainage wind Franschhoek's valley gets in full, one ridge line over.
The honest starting point for every quote here: which era is this window from, and which mountain is it catching the wind off tonight.
The Simondium approach
How it works
Four steps, one visit that matters.
01
Tell us about the window
Chat, call or the form below — rooms, product interest, and roughly where you are on the road.
02
Free in-home measure
A consultant comes to the farm with fabric and slat samples, measures every opening precisely, and talks through fabric and motorisation against your own light.
03
Written, per-window quote
Itemised pricing for every window discussed on site — nothing vague, nothing bundled you didn't ask for.
04
Made to order & fitted
Manufactured to your measurements and installed cleanly, with the operation demonstrated before we leave.
Also serving
The road either side of Simondium.
Four neighbouring places we quote just as often — read a little about each, in our own words.
Questions
Honest answers, before you call.
Is there a Simondium showroom we can visit?
No — there's genuinely nowhere on this road that functions as a shop street, so we haven't tried to force a showroom onto it. Every quote starts with a free in-home measure instead: a consultant brings fabric and slat samples to the farm, so you're choosing against your own window and your own light.
Will fitting a blind damage an old homestead wall?
Not if we spec it properly. For lime-washed masonry on an older homestead our default is an inside-mount blind that sits inside the window reveal and needs no facade fixing at all — the same approach we'd use on a listed heritage building, whether or not this particular wall is formally protected.
Do roller shutters make a farmhouse more secure?
Ours don't, and we won't sell them to you on that basis. They're a shading product — heat, glare and blackout control on a west-facing facade. If security-rated shutters are what you actually need, ask us and we'll point you to that separately rather than let the wording confuse the two.
Our guest cottage has floor-to-ceiling steel-framed glass — what do you recommend?
It depends on the room, but the shortlist is usually a blockout or sunscreen roller for the glass itself, and a concealed ceiling-recessed system if the build is early enough in planning to hide the hardware completely. We'll walk both options at the measure.
Can an awning handle the evening wind coming off Simonsberg?
That's exactly why every folding-arm awning and zip screen we fit here is motorised with a wind sensor as standard — it retracts on its own before the evening downdraught catches it open, rather than relying on someone remembering to wind it in.
How long does fitting take once we've ordered?
That depends on the products and how many windows are involved — your written quote will confirm a timeline for your specific order rather than a generic promise.
Ready when you are
Let's measure the window that's bothering you.
One conversation, one visit, one written quote — for a farmhouse sash or a cottage sliding door, wherever you are on this road.
Get in touch
Tell us about your windows.
Fill in what you can — a consultant will confirm the rest when we measure. We work right along this road, from an old homestead near the church to a brand-new cottage on the Franschhoek side.
POPIA: what you share here is used only to arrange your free measure and quote, and is never shared or sold to anyone else.