Blinds & awnings for Newlands

The wettest address in South Africa

Newlands holds the highest winter rainfall of any suburb in the country, and the mountain mist that sits over the forested upper slopes for days at a time brings damp and low light rather than harsh sun for a large part of the year. That changes the brief: shading hardware here needs to be fully weatherproof and sealed first, and glare control second — a fabric or mechanism that copes with an occasional Cape sunset does no good if it corrodes or swells through a wet Newlands winter.

Steep roofs, and the sun that still gets through

The steep-pitched roofs on Newlands' Victorian and Edwardian homes exist to shed that rain, but north- and west-facing glass still catches real glare through summer and the drier months. Sunscreen roller blinds go onto those specific elevations rather than being fitted as a default across the house — the rest of the year, keeping water and mist out matters more than cutting sun that mostly isn't there.

Forest to the garden wall

On the upper slopes near Newlands Forest, indigenous canopy and moss-covered stone walls run right up to the garden boundary, and a number of older homes have picked up contemporary glazed extensions that need the same damp-first thinking as the original house. Anything mounted outside — an awning over a stone verandah, an external blind on a new addition — gets a genuine weather rating, not just a UV rating. Damp and wind are also why we specify motorised operation on most of those outside fittings — a wind sensor pulls an awning in ahead of a squall whether or not anyone is home.