The Mullion Question: Smart Shades, Old Bones, and the Light We Live In
The Mullion Question: Smart Shades, Old Bones, and the Light We Live In
New Skin for Old Bones – Ongoing Series
There’s a point in every renovation where you realize you’re no longer fighting crumbling drywall or ancient wiring – you’re negotiating with light.
We’ve ripped, sanded, patched, painted, leveled, and prayed our way through this little Michigan house. We’ve called it New Skin for Old Bones because that’s what it’s felt like: healing a tired body and giving it another chance at life.
But this chapter isn’t about lumber or joint compound.
This one is about shades.
Not just any shades, either.
Smart, motorized, solar‑charged, top‑down/bottom‑up, Alexa‑friendly shades.
Because of course it is.
The Window That Sees Everything
If you’ve read the earlier chapters of this series, you already know the window.
The big one.
The giant 9‑foot‑wide picture window that opens the living room up to the world and lets the world look right back in. It’s the same window that starred in:
Doozer Prep Day – New Skin for Old Bones
https://deepdiveaipodcast.blogspot.com/2025/11/doozer-prep-day-new-skin-for-old-bones.htmlKellie’s Hearth – Finally Building a Life We Can Live In
https://deepdiveaipodcast.blogspot.com/2025/10/kellies-hearth-finally-building-life.htmlNew Skin for Old Bones (the original framing of this whole saga)
https://deepdiveaipodcast.blogspot.com/2025/09/new-skin-for-old-bones.htmlPhase Two – From Surgery to Recovery: Our House Learns to Breathe Again
https://deepdiveaipodcast.blogspot.com/2025/11/phase-two-from-surgery-to-recovery-our.html
In those posts, that window was mostly a backdrop – a patient watching its own surgery. Now, it’s the main character.
We loved the openness. We loved the flood of daylight. We loved standing there in socks and coffee steam, watching the street wake up.
What we didn’t love was feeling like the neighborhood could read our entire evening routine from the sidewalk.
So the question started forming: How do we keep the light we love without living in a fishbowl?
The Mullion Worry (a Very Real, Very Valid Concern)
Here’s where Kellie steps into the scene like the building’s defense attorney.
We were looking at motorized roller shades – the sleek, clean kind that mount above the window and drop down in one smooth line of fabric. We were on Yoolax’s site, sliding their little width and height selectors around like a home‑renovation video game.
I was picturing the finished look: three smart shades, light‑filtering fabric, talking to Alexa like tiny, well‑behaved robots.
Kellie was staring at the window.
More specifically, at the mullion – that shallow little bar that divides the glass.
She tapped it with her fingertip.
“How far off the wall do those rollers actually sit? What if the fabric catches on this?”
That’s the thing about renovating with someone you trust: they see the problem you haven’t invented yet.
Suddenly, this wasn’t just an order screen and a credit card.
This was a structural question.
Were we about to spend money on shades that would scrape, hang, and misbehave every time we lowered them?
Cue the research montage.
How Far Off the Wall Do These Things Actually Sit?
I went deep into the specs. Kellie went deep into the measuring tape.
We learned that most cassette‑style roller shades – including the Yoolax models we were eyeing – don’t sit flush to the wall. The hardware projects outward, and the fabric roll hangs a bit forward from the back edge.
Translated into real life:
The cassette housing is roughly 3–3.5 inches deep.
The back of the fabric roll usually sits about 2–2.5 inches away from the wall.
Our mullion, on the other hand, only sticks out around ¾ to 1 inch.
In other words:
The shade hangs comfortably in front of the mullion. It doesn’t hit it. It doesn’t get stuck on it. It just sails past.
Once we understood that, the panic melted into something else: possibility.
Now we weren’t asking, “Will this even work?”
We were asking, “Okay, if it works – how smart can we make it?”
Why We Chose Yoolax (and What We Actually Ordered)
This is where the house story meets the tech story.
We didn’t just buy one type of shade. We built a whole window system around how we actually live in each room.
We landed on Yoolax motorized shades for a few reasons:
They offer top down bottom up cellular shades for privacy and light control in smaller windows.
They make blackout roller shades for spaces where darkness matters (hello, studio).
They integrate with smart home systems we already use.
Here’s how that played out, room by room.
Garage Back Window – Quiet, Private, Controlled
Product: Yoolax Motorized Top Down Bottom Up Cellular Shade – Blackout, White
Mount Type: Inside mount
Size: 35" wide × 44" high
Motor Side: Right on one, left on the other (we mirrored them for ergonomics)
Power: Solar panel add‑on
Extras: White aluminum alloy valance, 3‑year limited motor warranty
The garage back windows needed something different from the living room. Out there, we wanted privacy and insulation.
The blackout white cellular fabric acts like a small, quiet thermos for each window – keeping heat in during winter and glare out during summer. But the top down bottom up design means we can still drop the shade from the top and let in a ribbon of light while keeping the lower half private.
It turns a workhorse space into something just a little more intentional.
Kitchen Front Windows – Soft Light, Daily Life
Product: Yoolax Motorized Top Down Bottom Up Cellular Shades – Blackout, White
Mount Type: Inside mount on both front kitchen windows
Size: 34 ¾" wide × 36" high (each side)
Motor Side: Left on one, right on the other – again, mirrored for usability
Power: Solar panels
Extras: White alloy valance, 3‑year motor protection
The front kitchen windows are where morning happens. Coffee, cat, weather check, first conversation of the day.
These shades let us keep the bottom covered (for privacy from the street) while cracking the top for sky and tree light. On gray days, the white fabric glows softly instead of cutting the light off completely.
They’re not just “coverings” – they’re a dimmer switch for the mood of the room.
Large Kitchen Side Window – The Anchor
Product: Another Yoolax Motorized Top Down Bottom Up Cellular Shade – Blackout, White
Mount Type: Inside
Size: 42 ¾" wide × 44" high
Motor Side: Right side
Power: Solar panel
Extras: Same white valance, same motor warranty
This big side window is the one that stares out over the side yard – the one that will eventually frame herb pots, snow drifts, and late‑summer sunsets.
We made the same choice here for a reason: consistency.
Same fabric, same style, same motion. When all three kitchen shades move together – a little top down here, a little bottom up there – the room feels cohesive, like it’s breathing as one unit.
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The Studio: Where the Blackout Roller Shades Take Over
Then there’s the studio.
This is where recordings happen. Where screens glow. Where reflections become a problem and light control is the difference between “decent” and “usable.”
For this room, we went with:
Product: Yoolax Motorized Blackout Roller Shades – Fabric Black
Mount Type: Outside mount across three windows (left, middle, right)
Sizes: Two at 39" wide × 84" high (left and right), and one at 37" wide × 84" high (center)
Power Type: Matter Motor [61008] on all three
Control: One with a Lightwirl remote, all compatible with our smart home
Extras: White alloy valance on each, fabric‑wrapped bottom rods, solar panels, 3‑year motor warranty
Why blackout here?
Because when you’re filming, editing, or recording, stray light isn’t charming – it’s noise.
These shades let us turn the studio into a controlled environment. With one voice command or a remote tap, we can go from bright daylight to full blackout.
And because they’re outside‑mounted, they cover the trim cleanly and give the studio a more finished, almost cinematic look – like a small, personal screening room stitched onto the side of a 1950s house.
Why Matter Motors and Solar Panels Made Sense for Us
On paper, some of these add‑ons look like little line items:
Matter motor upgrade
Solar panel
Fabric‑wrapped hem bar
Alloy valance
Extended motor service
In real life, they’re the difference between a shade you tolerate and a system you love.
We chose Matter motors because our home already has a mix of Amazon Echo devices and a SmartThings hub. Matter lets these shades speak the same language as the rest of the house.
That means:
We can say, “Alexa, lower the studio shades to 20%,” and all three respond.
We can tie them into routines – morning, evening, filming, heatwave mode.
If we adjust hubs or platforms in the future, the shades aren’t stranded.
We chose solar panels because we didn’t feel like chasing battery levels or retrofitting electrical inside finished walls. The windows already see plenty of daylight; it felt right to let the sun pay for its own dimmer switch.
And the valances and hem bars?
That’s the “new skin” part.
Those small touches make the shades look like they belong to the house – not like an afterthought bolted onto it.
Affiliate Gear & Tools – The Quiet Helpers
Like the other posts in this series, this chapter also has its backstage crew: the tools and gadgets that made measuring, planning, and installing possible.
We’ll keep it simple here – you can swap in your actual Amazon links where marked:
Laser Distance Measurer – for getting accurate window widths and heights without juggling a tape measure alone.
Affiliate link: placeholderMulti‑bit Drill/Driver Set – for mounting brackets into wood, drywall, and the occasional mystery substrate.
Affiliate link: placeholderStud Finder with Deep Scan – because nothing ruins your day like hitting nothing but air behind an old wall.
Affiliate link: placeholderSmall Step Ladder – just high enough to reach the top of the window without risking acrobatics.
Affiliate link: placeholder
As always: these are tools we actually use in our own project. If you pick them up through these links, it helps support the ongoing saga of Old Bones getting its new skin.
Soundtrack of a House in Progress
If you’ve been around this blog for a while, you know we rarely renovate in silence. Blues riffs, ambient tracks, and Deep Dive AI‑flavored playlists have been woven through other posts in this series.
Rather than reinvent those here, we’ll point you back to the chapters where the music first showed up:
Doozer Prep Day – New Skin for Old Bones – for the sanding and scraping soundtrack.
Phase Two – From Surgery to Recovery – for the quiet, steady songs that match the pace of healing.
You can find the embedded tracks and links directly in those posts.
Because some days, the house needs music as much as it needs drywall.
What This Chapter Really Changed
On the surface, this was about shades.
Clearing a mullion.
Choosing inside vs outside mount.
Picking between blackout and cellular, kitchen and studio, Zigbee and Matter.
But underneath, it was about something gentler:
How much of the world we let in.
How much of ourselves we show back.
How we shape the light in the spaces we’re slowly turning into home.
These Yoolax shades are more than window treatments. They’re quiet, daily choices:
Lowering the garage shades at night and feeling the house exhale.
Dropping the kitchen tops down just enough to let the sunrise in without giving the whole street a morning show.
Blacking out the studio and building something new in the dark.
New Skin for Old Bones was never just about making an old house pretty.
It’s about tuning the house to the way we actually live, work, rest, and dream.
This chapter – the Mullion Question, the smart shades, the cellular pockets and blackout panels – is just another stitch in that ongoing work.
The bones are still old.
But the light is new.
And we’re finally learning how to live in it on purpose.
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