Window furnishings for new estate homes.
Your builder handed over a beautiful house with bare glass on every window. That gap is normal, it is expensive to fix badly, and the timing of when you book the measure decides whether you spend your first month living behind sheets.
The handover gap.
Volume builder contracts across Cardinia Lakes, Arena, Heritage Springs, Lakeside, Riverbank, Arcadia, Timbertop, Kaduna Park and the Clyde North estates almost never include window furnishings. Where an upgrade package does include something, it is usually a basic roller to selected windows only, and the exclusions are telling: the wet areas, the void, the stairwell and the alfresco are the ones left off, which are precisely the ones that are hardest and most expensive to do later.
So plan for it as its own line item. A realistic figure for a quality roller fit out through a four bedroom estate home is 3,500 to 7,000 dollars including GST, with double rollers to the living zone. If you want plantation shutters throughout, that is 9,000 to 22,000 dollars. Adding motorisation to the void, stairwell and main living windows adds roughly 1,200 to 3,000 dollars. These are 2026 prices, supplied and fitted, and they are the same numbers we quote in Officer and Clyde North every week.
Timing the measure against your settlement.
The single most useful thing on this page: book the measure at or just after the practical completion inspection, when the windows are glazed and the internal architraves are on. Before that point the reveals can still move and you would be measuring something that is about to change.
| Stage | What to do | Why then |
|---|---|---|
| Frame stage | Decide if any blind will be hardwired motorised | The only cheap moment to run cable, before the plasterer |
| Lock up | Nothing yet | Reveals and architraves are not final |
| Practical completion inspection | Book the measure | Glazing and architraves are fixed, dimensions are real |
| Handover | Approve the quote and order | Rollers arrive in 2 to 3 weeks, shutters in 6 to 10 |
| 2 to 3 weeks after handover | Blinds installed | Bedrooms are covered before the first weekend of visitors |
| 6 to 10 weeks after handover | Shutters installed | Made to measure, worth the wait, no way to shorten it |
If your handover date moves, which it usually does, tell us and we hold the order. Nothing goes to manufacture until you approve the check measure.
Standard estate windows work in your favour.
Volume builders use a fairly small set of window sizes across their range, which means that once we have measured one of a given floor plan we have a very good idea what your version will cost before we arrive. It also means you can compare notes with a neighbour on the same plan and the numbers will be close, which is a useful sanity check that you are not being taken for a ride.
There are three window types in these homes that always need a decision rather than a default:
- The entry void. Four to six metres off the floor, often two windows stacked. There is no safe ladder position over the staircase, so this is motorised or it is nothing. Specify a solar charging strip so nobody ever has to reach it again.
- The stairwell window. Same reasoning, plus it is usually the window that makes the upstairs hallway unbearable in summer.
- Stacker and sliding doors to the alfresco. Three or four metres wide. Shutters here need a bi-fold track and get expensive quickly, so most homes use a wide double roller instead and put the money into the front of the house. The comparison is on blinds versus shutters.
Motorisation: decide at frame stage or go battery.
There is exactly one cheap moment to run cabling for hardwired blind motors, and it is before the plaster goes on. If you know you want hardwired, raise it with your builder's electrician at frame stage. Miss that window and retrofitting hardwired means chasing walls, which usually costs more than the motors.
For most people the answer is simpler: lithium battery motors. No cabling, no electrician, charge from a USB lead once or twice a year, and they can go in at any point in the future including years after handover. That flexibility is why battery dominates in finished estate homes. Costs, the differences between battery, solar and hardwired, and the failure modes are all set out on the motorised blinds cost guide.
One safety note worth making at handover time. Corded internal blinds are covered by a mandatory ACCC consumer product safety standard governing how cords must be secured out of reach, and every corded blind we fit complies with it. In a new estate home with small children the cleaner outcome is to remove the cord entirely, so we specify cordless as the default in bedrooms and playrooms and motorisation wherever a window is tall, wide or awkward.
Staging the spend.
Most people reach handover having already spent on deposit, stamp duty, landscaping, fencing, driveway and furniture. Covering thirty windows in one hit is not always realistic and it does not have to be. We quote per window precisely so you can stage it, and because everything is made to measure anyway, staging costs nothing beyond an extra install visit. We record fabric, colour, louvre size and system so later stages match the earlier ones exactly.
- Stage one, function: blockout blinds to every bedroom so the household sleeps, plus the west facing living windows so that room is usable after two in the afternoon. Roughly 1,500 to 3,000 dollars.
- Stage two, completion: the rest of the living zone, kitchen, study and hallway, taking a whole home quality roller fit out to about 3,500 to 7,000 dollars.
- Stage three, upgrade: plantation shutters to the front facade and wet areas, which is where the house starts to look finished from the street. See the shutter cost guide.
- Stage four, outdoor: blinds to the alfresco at 450 to 1,600 dollars per drop, turning it into a room you use year round. See outdoor blinds.
The one thing worth not deferring is the void or stairwell blind. It is the hardest window to work on, it is the one that heats the whole upstairs, and it is much easier to include in a first install visit than to bring a team back for one window later.
Frequently asked questions.
Do new estate homes come with blinds included?
When should I book the measure on a new build?
Should I run cabling for motorised blinds before handover?
What is the cheapest sensible way to cover a whole new house?
Just had your handover?
We will measure the whole house, quote it per window, and tell you which rooms to do first. Free, and nothing is charged until you approve it.