Before buying blinds, decide who will measure and who will fit them. You can do both yourself, order online and pay someone to install, or choose a service that handles the whole job. The right route depends on your windows, confidence with DIY and who will put a measuring mistake right.

The three routes

1. Measure and fit them yourself

You measure, order and fit. A practical option for straightforward windows if you’re comfortable with a tape measure and drill. You save the fitting labour, but allow for tools you don’t own and the cost of a remake if you measure wrong. Check any retailer’s measuring guarantee before relying on it.

Next step: record each window on the measuring worksheet and check the tools and steps in how to fit blinds.

2. Order online, pay someone to fit

You measure and order; a fitter or handyperson installs. This hybrid route suits people happy to measure but keen to leave the drilling and fixings to someone else. Confirm the fitter accepts blinds you’ve bought yourself. Paying for installation alone doesn’t transfer your measuring risk.

Next step: use the fitting cost estimator for an indicative labour budget, then confirm the total price with a fitter before ordering.

3. Pay for measuring, supply and fitting

A local shop or national service handles all three. Consider this for awkward windows, expensive blinds or when you want someone else to manage the job. Ask who pays for remaking and refitting a blind if their measurements are wrong, and get that responsibility in writing. See how measure-and-fit services work.

Next step: take the questions to ask a fitter to your appointment and compare the full prices and written terms on the quote comparison sheet.

Back to contents

What DIY really requires

Skills: measuring to the millimetre (our measuring guide), drilling a straight hole in whatever your wall is made of, and using a level. Kit: a drill (hammer function for masonry), the right bits, a pencil, a step ladder and a screwdriver — the fitting walkthrough lists everything.

The honest failure modes, in order of frequency:

  • Mis-measurement. The expensive one: made-to-measure blinds cut to your wrong numbers are yours. This risk scales with blind price — a wrong £30 roller stings, a wrong lined roman for a bay hurts.
  • Fixing failures. Screws into crumbly plaster or bare plasterboard without proper fixings; the blind comes down in a week.
  • The hidden lintel. Concrete blunts cheap bits; steel needs a different approach entirely. People give up mid-hole.
  • Wonky. A few millimetres off level looks fine until the blind is down and the sill line isn’t parallel.

All fixable, all avoidable, none of them rare.

Back to contents

When DIY is clearly right

  • Standard uPVC or timber windows with a normal recess
  • Light blinds: rollers, day & night, small venetians, most romans
  • You own a drill and have hung a shelf that stayed up
  • Rentals where you’ve agreed drilling — or no-drill/Perfect Fit-style frames that avoid drilling altogether

On a whole house of straightforward windows, route 1 usually saves the price of several extra blinds compared with a full-service quote.

Back to contents

When paying a professional is the smart call

  • Bay windows. Multiple blinds that must align, angled corners, usually the home’s most visible window. See blinds for bay windows.
  • Heavy or wide blinds. Big faux wood venetians and 3 m vertical tracks want experience and a second pair of hands.
  • Hostile fixing surfaces. Tiles, concrete soffits, steel lintels, 1930s plaster that crumbles if you look at it.
  • Height. Stairwell and tall landing windows put you on a ladder in exactly the wrong place. Fitters carry the right access kit and insurance. A roof window over the stairs is the classic case (blinds for roof windows and skylights), and for a window you’d otherwise climb up to every day, an electric blind may be the better answer.
  • Expensive blinds. When the product costs enough that a measuring error would really hurt, paying a service to own that risk is rational insurance, not extravagance.
  • You just don’t want to. Legitimate. A fitter does a whole house in a morning.

Back to contents

The money, summarised

Professional fitting is typically charged per blind with a minimum visit charge, and full measure-and-fit bundles price the risk and the visit into the blind itself — realistic ranges and the factors that move them are in the cost of fitting blinds guide. Before booking anyone, arm yourself with the questions to ask a fitter.

If you land on DIY, start with the easiest window in the house, not the bay — confidence compounds, and so do mistakes.

Back to contents

Frequently asked questions

Is fitting blinds hard?

For a standard window with a timber or masonry surround: no. It's a two-bracket, four-screw job with an ordinary drill. Difficulty comes from the situation — concrete lintels, tiles, plasterboard, bay windows, heavy blinds and tall windows — not from the blind itself.

How long does it take to fit one blind?

A confident DIYer typically takes 20–45 minutes for the first blind including checking measurements and finding the drill, and speeds up on each one after. Professionals commonly do a straightforward blind in 10–15 minutes because window number four in a house is just like window three.

What's the real saving from DIY?

You save the fitting labour on every window, and — if you also measure yourself — the margin built into full measure-and-fit pricing, which is commonly a large fraction of the total. Against that, price in tools you don't own and the cost of any mis-measured blind, which is yours to keep.

Back to contents

Free tools to use with this guide

  • Fitting cost estimator Bought your blinds already? See a rough, indicative budget for having any number of them fitted, with the working shown.
  • Quote comparison sheet Compare two or three quotes: total cost, deposit, guarantee and written terms. Download a text record of your notes or print the sheet.