The old metal mini blinds
The new faux wood blinds
Installing the new blinds
The boys playing cards with Uncle Jason (new blinds in the background)We have had the same thin metal mini blinds since we moved into our house in 1993. The mini blinds were always getting bent and one by one they had started coming apart so that most of them were now broken. This year we decided to install new 2 inch faux wood blinds.
After a little research I chose the "value" option as usual and ordered the blinds from blinds.com. I only ordered a few at first to see how they were. They seemed fine so I went ahead and ordered the rest - 30 windows in all.
The website gives you a choice of inside mount (blinds sit inside the window frame) or outside mount (blinds cover the window frame). Inside mount is the most popular and looks the best. With the first trial blind order, I learned that our windows are not deep enough so that with an inside mount the blind hardware (the metal housing at the top of the blinds) does not sit flush within the window frame. Instead the hardware stuck out a couple inches and the valance to cover the blind hardware did not cover the sides that stuck out.
I looked at the pictures of the outside mount on the website and noticed that with an outside mount they included a mitred valance with side pieces to cover the blind hardware, so I called blinds.com and had them modify my order to cut the valances as if I was doing an outside mount.
I had to install 30 blinds and custom cut 60 valance side pieces. I thought it was too tight to use my drill. A friend later told me that I could have used a special drill attachment, but I just used my handy screw driver and ratchet. The valance side pieces were supposed to attach to the valance front with metal clips, but attaching the side pieces with the metal clips left a gap too big for my liking so I decided to glue the side pieces and then go back and touch up any gaps with caulk and some paint I had that matched pretty closely. I cut the valance side pieces with a manual mitre box saw that a neighbor gave me years ago.
It was a lot of work. I would do a few blinds each morning before work and then whenever I could find some spare time. We had all the normal end of school\holiday hustle and bustle going on in addition to some extended family drama. I would tell Helen, "I'm just trying to put up my blinds." She keeps trying to tell me that I can't live in a silo. I say why not?
We're very happy with the blinds. It's one of those things where you wonder why you didn't do it sooner.
Two Steps Forward One Step Back
Like most of my home improvement projects the blinds were not a complete success story. One morning before work I got up around 5 am with Helen and I was eager to make some progress on the blinds. I went into the garage to get the paint to patch the valance cover seams. I don't usually use a paint stirrer. I figure it's just another unnecessary step when you can just shake the can. I shook the can and paint flew all over the place. I guess it wasn't sealed properly. My clothes were ruined. I'm always ruining clothes because I never think I'm going to screw up. I was also infuriated because I wasting valuable time. I thought I had cleaned up all the paint. It wasn't until a few days later that we realized that there was a good bit of splatter all over the front of my car hood. Helen said she even checked my car hood after the spill as she was leaving because she knows how fixated and careless I can be.
I tried a number of cleaners to get the paint off, but in the end I lost my patience and just soaped it up really good and used a scraper. I can get like that. I want the paint off and by God it is coming off. I thought it looked OK initially, but as time wore on it didn't look so good. I was eager to see if waxing the hood would make it look better, but Christmas and things like that got in the way. I finally got the time to wax the hood and thankfully it looked much better. I think I'm going to be able to overcome it.
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