Lancaster & Associates has been a provider of bespoke window covering products to the Interior Design trade for over 45 years. We have always taken all efforts to produce a high-quality, functional, beautiful and safe product for your clientele.

To ensure compliance with new safety requirements that have come into effect effective June 1, 2024, L&A will no longer offer window treatments with free hanging operating cords.

This will affect all Roller shade, Roman shade, Blinds, Honeycomb shades and cord traversing drapery rod products. This will reduce the operating options and functions that have been available in the past. Unfortunately, these new requirements come at a cost resulting in price increases on some products.

For Roman shade, the changes will be:

• Pull cord with cord cleats or cord locks will no longer be available
• Top-Down/ Bottom-Up function has been discontinued and will no longer be an option
• All manually operated Roman shades will have RBS Clutch lifts with tension secured bead chain operator
• All Roman shades will have lift cords with safety shrouding

For roller shade products, all manually operated shades will have either a tension secured bead chain operator or cordless operation (if available). Some blinds and shades have other operator options, depending on manufacturer.

For cord traversing drapery rods, a new style wall mounted cord tensioning device will be included for installation. No changes to baton operated drapery systems.

of course, Motorization is always available for all of these products and has become more popular than ever, more affordable and more reliable. We have options that include totally wire-free operation using the new generation of Li-ion rechargeable motors. There are low and line voltage stand-alone systems as well as fully networked shading and drapery systems by Lutron. Please check out all of our motorization options here or call our office and speak with a specialist. 

For more information, visit the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission’s web page on window coverings (https://www.cpsc.gov/gocordless).

You may also visit the Window Covering Safety Council website (https://windowcoverings.org) for more information on these industry-wide federal regulations going into effect June 1, 2024.