The Hemispheres, Hallandale Beach

Two and a half inches, a valance, and one fabric two ways

The Hemispheres sits on Hallandale Beach Boulevard between the water and the beach, and this unit looks two ways - down the canal on one side, out over the towers to the ocean on the other - through wraparound windows that meet at angled corners. The owners had furnished the place with care and wanted shades that belonged to it, so a good part of this job happened before the first measurement: we spent a lot of time matching the fabric to the furniture. We landed on Mermet Elba in Limestone, a bold, textured weave that comes as a pair - Elba Daylight, light-filtering at under 1% openness, in the living areas, where it takes the glare off the water and keeps the view, and Elba Twilight, the blackout version in the same colour, in the bedroom. The customer was ecstatic with the texture.

The hard part was the depth. The space above the glass left about two and a half inches for a shade - not enough for a standard fascia, let alone a roller with fabric on it. The answer was a custom valance in lacquered basswood, made to the exact profile each opening allowed, so the roller disappears behind it and the fabric drops clean in front of the glass. And where two windows meet at the corner, we added a 60-degree angle and cut the valance on the spot, so the two runs close in a miter that follows the glass instead of leaving a gap. The widest opening pushed it one step further: one shade spans 110 inches in that same two and a half inches, so it was built on a special reinforced tube that carries the full width without the bow a standard tube would take at that span.

Every shade runs on a Somfy Sonesse 30 Zigbee motor - the slim, quiet 24 V DC roller motor - so the whole unit sits on one Zigbee network behind a Somfy TaHoma, and the shades are synchronized: they move at the same time, so the whole wraparound rises as one line of fabric instead of a ragged row. On the wall there is a Somfy Zigbee wall-mounted remote; on the phone, the TaHoma app and Apple Home - "Hey Siri, close the bedroom" does exactly that, and the afternoon sun can be on a schedule if they want it. More on Sonesse and why Zigbee here.

Then the part nobody sees: caulking everywhere. Every window edge was sealed, so the bedroom blackout is a real blackout and the light-filtering rooms have no bright line at the top of the glass. Measured, made, installed and programmed by our own team - and a slim painted line above every window where the hardware used to be the problem.