Blinds and shutters in Albury: what actually happens, stage by stage
From the free measure to the last blind on the wall is 2 to 3 weeks for roller and roman blinds, 3 to 5 weeks for curtains and 6 to 10 weeks for plantation shutters. Installation day itself is the short part: about 20 minutes per roller blind, 30 to 45 minutes per curtain track and 45 to 90 minutes per shutter opening, so a 13-window house in rollers is a half day and a full shutter fit-out is one to two days. You need someone home, one parking space within about 20 metres, one free power point and clear window sills. No water, no wet trades, no paint.
Most people have never had window furnishings fitted before and have no idea whether it is a two-hour job or a two-day job, whether they need to take a day off work, or whether the house will be full of dust. This page walks through every stage in order with real timings from jobs around Albury, Lavington, Thurgoona and Wodonga, tells you what stalls each stage, and gives you a printable checklist so nothing gets missed the morning the crew turns up.
The full timeline, stage by stage
Timings below are for a typical single-storey Albury house with 13 openings. Multi-storey homes and heritage places in Central and East Albury tend to sit at the longer end of every install figure because of access and out-of-square reveals.
| Stage | How long | What happens | What you need to do |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Enquiry and booking | Reply within 1 business day | We read your enquiry, ask anything we need about window count and rooms, and offer measure times. | Pick a time when whoever makes the decision is home. Two people deciding on separate visits doubles the job. |
| 2. Free in-home measure | 45 to 90 minutes | Every opening measured in three places for width and height, reveal depth checked, aspect and sun path noted, fabric and louvre samples held up in your own light. | Clear access to each window. Have a rough idea of which rooms need blockout, which need the view kept, and a budget range. |
| 3. Written quote | Within 2 business days | Itemised per window: fabric name and colour code, mount type, control type, GST included. | Check the room names, the fabric names and that the sliding door is counted as two blinds if it is over about 2.4m. |
| 4. Approval and order | Same day you approve | Sizes are locked, fabric is reserved at the mill, manufacture is scheduled. | Read the sizes on the order confirmation. This is the last point a colour or size can change without a remake charge. |
| 5. Check measure (new builds and shutters) | 30 to 60 minutes | A second measure once plaster, tiling, architraves and flooring are finished, because those four trades move a reveal by 5mm to 20mm. | Tell us the day the last of those trades finishes. Booking this early is the single biggest cause of a remake. |
| 6. Manufacture | Rollers and romans 2 to 3 weeks, curtains 3 to 5 weeks, shutters 6 to 10 weeks | Each blind, curtain and shutter panel is made to your exact sizes. | Nothing. We will tell you if a fabric goes on backorder rather than quietly substituting it. |
| 7. Install booking | 3 to 7 days before the day | We confirm the date and give a two hour arrival window. | Confirm someone will be home for the whole install, not just the start. |
| 8. Installation day | About 20 min per roller, 30 to 45 min per curtain track, 45 to 90 min per shutter opening | Old blinds down, brackets marked and levelled, holes drilled and vacuumed, blinds hung, travel set, motors limited and paired, child-safety devices fixed to the wall. | Sills clear, furniture pulled back a metre, pets shut away, one parking space and one power point free. |
| 9. Handover and demonstration | 15 to 30 minutes | We walk every room, run each blind through full travel, show you the app or remote, and hand over the warranty and care documents. | Walk it with us. Anything you are not happy with is far easier to fix while the tools are still in the house. |
| 10. Settling in | First 6 weeks | New fabric relaxes slightly, chains bed in, and a blind can start tracking a millimetre or two off centre. | Call it in. It is usually a five minute adjustment and it is covered. |
Indicative timings for Albury and Wodonga jobs in 2026. Your dates are confirmed in writing at the order stage.
Print this and tick it off before the crew arrives
Everything below takes about twenty minutes the night before and saves the crew an hour on the day. Your ticks are saved in this browser, so you can come back to it.
The week before
The night before
The morning of the install
While we are there
Do not sign off until these are done
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Book the free in-home measure and we will give you the real lead time for your product before you commit to anything.
What actually stalls each stage
Almost every delayed job we have had comes down to one of six things, and five of them are fixable if you know about them in advance.
- Approval sitting in an inbox. Fabric is reserved at the mill on approval, not on quote. A quote approved on a Monday and a quote approved three weeks later are three weeks apart on the wall.
- A colour change after the order. Once sizes are locked and the fabric is cut, changing it is a remake at your cost and adds 2 to 3 weeks. Take the samples home and live with them for a few days before you approve.
- The check measure booked too early on a new build. Plaster, tiles, architraves and flooring each move a reveal. Measure before the flooring goes down and the blind is short. This is the number one cause of a remake in the new Thurgoona and Hamilton Valley estates, and our new build page sets out the right sequence.
- Fabric on backorder. Occasionally a popular colour runs out at the mill. We will tell you and offer a swap or a wait rather than substituting quietly.
- Imported shutter shipping. Plantation shutters are built offshore for most suppliers. The Christmas shutdown and Chinese New Year each add 2 to 4 weeks to the 6 to 10 week window, so a shutter order placed in November is realistically a February install.
- Nobody home. A missed install slot usually costs another 1 to 2 weeks before the next free day, because installers are booked in day blocks.
Access, parking, power and water
We need less than most trades. One parking space within about 20 metres of the front door is enough for a roller blind job; for a shutter install we want the trailer close because the panels are large, flat and easily damaged carrying them past a fence. Narrow streets in Central Albury and the older parts of East Albury sometimes mean we park on the verge, so tell us at booking if there is a permit zone or a tight driveway.
Power: one standard power point for a corded hammer drill on masonry and for the vacuum. Most fixings go in with cordless tools, but brick, concrete lintels and the render on 1970s and 1980s Lavington houses need the corded drill. Water: none at all. Nothing we do is a wet trade, so there is no mixing, no washing out and nothing draining into your garden.
One important limit. If your blinds are hardwired rather than battery motorised, the 240 volt supply must be run and terminated by a licensed electrician before we arrive. We do not do electrical work, and we cannot connect to an unterminated cable. Battery motorised blinds need no electrician at all, which is why they are the usual retrofit choice. Our motorised blinds page explains which situation suits which.
Noise, dust, smell, pets, kids and working from home
Noise. Each bracket takes 2 to 4 holes and each hole is 10 to 20 seconds of drilling. A whole house of roller blinds is roughly four hours on site with maybe fifteen minutes of actual drilling spread through it. Brick, concrete lintels and the hard render on older Albury houses are the loud part; plasterboard and timber reveals are barely audible from the next room. Shutters are quieter overall but the fitting takes longer per opening.
Dust. About a teaspoon per hole, and we run a vacuum at the drill point as we go. There is no cutting of masonry, no sanding and no sweeping compound. At the end the sills, skirtings and floors get vacuumed. If you have a light carpet under a window, say so and we will put a drop sheet down first.
Smell. Nothing is painted, glued or sealed on site, so there is no solvent smell. New blockout fabric can carry a faint vinyl smell for a day or two, which airing the room clears. Freshly made curtains sometimes smell of the pressing rather than anything chemical.
Pets. Shut dogs and cats in a closed room or the yard for the duration. Front doors are open while we carry blinds in, drills upset most dogs, and a curious cat and a box of brackets end badly. Birds and fish should be moved out of the rooms being drilled because the vibration carries.
Kids. There are screws, small plastic components and metal offcuts on the floor while a room is being fitted. Keep toddlers out of the active room, and expect us to be finished in that room within half an hour. Once the blind is up we fit the child-safety devices immediately rather than at the end of the job, and our page on blind cord safety explains exactly what those are.
Working from home. Very doable. Tell us at the start which room is your office and whether you have calls, and we will do that room first thing or last thing and work the opposite end of the house in between. A whole-house install is intermittent noise, not a continuous racket, so most people take their calls with the door shut and never reschedule.
What has to be moved, and what we will move for you
We will happily shift a light chair or a side table. What we ask you to do beforehand is anything heavy, fragile or personal.
- Everything off the window sills, including bathroom and kitchen sills.
- Furniture pulled roughly one metre clear of each window, and beds moved out from under a window.
- Pictures, mirrors and floating shelves off the wall next to the window. Hammer drilling into brick veneer shakes a whole wall and a hook that has held for ten years can let go.
- Fish tanks, birdcages, tall pot plants and anything on a plant stand.
- Vertical blind tracks, old pelmets and curtain rods can stay up. We remove them, and we will tell you honestly if taking down an old timber pelmet is going to leave paint damage that needs a painter afterwards.
- Cars out of the driveway if the job includes shutters or a large curtain order.
Things we do not do on the day, so you are not surprised: electrical work of any kind, patching and painting where an old pelmet or bracket has left a mark, removing or refitting security screens, plaster repair to previously damaged fixings, and any external product such as an awning or an outdoor roller shutter. If any of those come up at the measure we will flag them then rather than on the morning.
Weather, and what a clean finish looks like
Internal window furnishings are close to weatherproof as a trade. Rain does not stop an install, though on a genuinely soaking day we will lay more drop sheets and make fewer trips in and out. Extreme heat matters more than rain in this town: on a 40°C day, work in a two-storey void or a west-facing upstairs room is much better done before midday, and we will offer you an early start rather than push through the afternoon. Frost and fog do not affect the work at all, although a very cold morning can make a new blockout fabric a little stiff for the first roll.
A finished job should look like this. Every bracket levelled with a spirit level, not by eye. Every blind run to full travel and back twice in front of you. Bottom rails sitting parallel to the sill, not to the frame, if the frame is out of square. Motor limits set at both ends and the remote or app tested on your phone. Child-safety devices screwed into the wall. Every drill hole vacuumed, sills and skirtings wiped, floors vacuumed. All cardboard, plastic wrap and offcuts loaded into the vehicle. Your old blinds gone unless you asked to keep them. And your warranty documents, care sheet and tax invoice with the ABN in your hand before we leave. If anything on that list is missing, say so before you sign the completion note. Our warranty page explains what happens after that point.
Waste: the cardboard and paper wrap goes into recycling. Aluminium tubes, bottom rails, brackets and shutter frames go to a scrap metal recycler here in Albury rather than into landfill, because aluminium is worth recycling and it is the single heaviest part of an old blind. Fabric, PVC and honeycomb offcuts have no recycling stream and unfortunately go to general waste. If an old blind still works and matches something else in your house, we will offer to leave it with you for spare parts rather than take it away, and our repairs page covers what those parts are worth keeping for.
Installation day questions
How long does a blind installation take in an Albury house?
How long from the free measure to the blinds being on the wall?
What do I have to move before the installers arrive?
How noisy and dusty is a blind installation?
Do you need water or power, and can weather delay the job?
What happens to my old blinds and the packaging?
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