Blinds & roller shutters for Gardens

Victorian streets around a historic garden

Gardens takes its name from the Company's Garden it wraps around, and the Victorian architecture here follows suit — narrow-fronted townhouses and apartment conversions mixed in among the original stock, more urban and more mixed-use than Higgovale's mountainside stands. Inside the original reveals, timber venetian blinds are the usual answer, templated to the depth of the joinery rather than fixed over it. A conservation panel acts for Gardens alongside Higgovale, Oranjezicht and Tamboerskloof, so the same heritage caution applies here: a blind inside the reveal is a furnishing decision, exterior work on an older facade is worth checking first.

Lower down, less of the direct west sun

Being lower in the Bowl and closer to town, Gardens doesn't carry quite the same unbroken west-facing exposure as Higgovale's upper stands — more buildings and street trees interrupt the sightline. The elevations that do get direct afternoon sun still follow the same rule for a sunscreen roller blind: the lower the openness percentage, the more heat and glare it blocks, at the cost of a softer view.

Apartments and townhouses, different rules

Gardens carries more sectional-title apartment conversions than Higgovale, which means body-corporate approval for anything changing a building's exterior — an awning cassette or a roller-shutter headbox included. A blind fitted inside a unit's own window reveal needs no such sign-off. We ask which applies at the free measure, not after the order's placed.