Plaza answers a question most people only meet once the tape measure comes out: not which fabric, but how the blind should be built. Blinds By Post lists it three ways - Plaza, Plaza Cassette and Plaza Cassette Motorised - which is to say an open roller on a bare tube, the same roller boxed into an enclosed headrail, and the boxed version again with a motor in place of a chain. Underneath the hardware sits one cloth: 6 colourways of standard-opacity fabric, with prices starting from £16.54.
Who it suits
Match the version to the window and the range covers most of a house. The open roller is the no-nonsense default for recesses where the tube tucks out of sight - utility rooms, back bedrooms doing duty as offices, anywhere function outranks finish. The cassette earns its place where the head of the blind is on show: patio doors, kitchen diners, front rooms with shallow recesses. The motorised cassette is the answer for stairwell glazing, windows behind worktops and sofas, and households that want the looped chain gone altogether.
The fabric itself is standard opacity, so expect softened daylight and daytime privacy rather than darkness; with the lights on after dusk, shapes can read from outside. A bedroom that needs a proper lie-in wants blackout cloth, which is a different shortlist. For living spaces, standard opacity is usually the right call - the room stays bright and the blind stays quiet.
The colours
6 colours available
The card splits into two moods. One half is soft-spoken to the point of secrecy - Sense, Touch and Whisper are names that give you a feeling and nothing else. The other half is quarried - Graphite, Steel and Stone - names that read as the greys and stony neutrals a kitchen or an office asks for. The mineral end you can almost shortlist from experience; the whispered end you cannot, and that is where samples stop being a nicety. Pin the contenders beside the frame for a few days and let morning and evening light cast the deciding votes.
Price by your dimensions
Enter your window size. We round up to the next standard size, which matches how the retailer actually quotes you.
Price around its usual level (checked since 6 Jun).
The from-price of £16.54 attaches to the smallest size, and the grid above scales it to your window - cost climbing with width and drop, as made-to-measure always does. Bear in mind that the three versions are listed as separate products, each with its own grid: price the one you will actually fit, not the headline.
How it compares
On Blinds By Post's own shelves, Plaza's pitch is completeness - one restrained palette available at every rung of the hardware ladder, from bare tube to remote control. Step outside the shop and the sums change again. The Plaza name appears at four other UK retailers we track - Blinds Direct, Roller Blinds Direct, Vertical Blinds Direct and Wilsons Blinds - and the same fabric at the same measurements rarely carries the same price from shop to shop. Grids move independently too, so today's keenest shop may not be next month's. Our Plaza comparison sets the five shops side by side at your dimensions - a minute there is the difference between a fair price and a lucky one.
Who should pass? Shoppers after loud colour, for a start - nothing on a card of Whispers and Steels promises it - and anyone whose first requirement is darkness, which standard opacity does not offer.
A note on care
Little and often beats a deep clean. A monthly pass with the vacuum's upholstery head keeps dust from bedding in; a damp cloth, dabbed rather than dragged, handles the occasional mark; and the fabric should be properly dry before it rolls away. Cassette versions collect dust along the slot where the fabric enters, so run a duster along that lip when you do the sills. A motorised blind likes a full up-and-down run now and then to keep everything moving as it should - and whichever version you choose, a blind that is used regularly wears better than one left permanently at half-mast.