Blinds Installation

For me, one of the hardest parts of finishing a room is the windows. And surprisingly, one of the easiest things I can do is fix upvc doors. I have a hard time deciding on what curtains (nevermind whether I should even have curtains or not), what roller blinds, or even what hardware I should be putting up to complement with the new residential window installation. It’s important to thoroughly research double glazing window companies. Once I’ve finally made that decision I have an impossible time with the installation of one or more parts of that because I have some serious issues following directions without words. It’s a total first world problem and yet I keep having it. With our new windows we needed new window dressings so I finally decided towels and sheets weren’t working when I saw some neighbors walking way too close to my house after I had just showered. It was time.

The easy part actually came on my November trip to Ikea. My husband and I had found some curtain rods called Skuggig that were really easy to install and had the clean simple lines we were looking for. (update: I hear they’ve since been discontinued. Anyone know of a similar product?) We also found some simple curtains that were both sturdy and sheer, all at the same time. Ikea’s Vivan was our new curtain of choice. They came with an iron-on hem tape so we could change the length easily.

For custom window treatments, we decided we wanted a more natural look so we instantly knew we wanted bamboo roman blinds of some kind. After pricing out our options we found Overstock had the best rates. Even better, they almost always have a coupon code so all our blinds came in at less than $30 each. We went with the Tuscan Bamboo Roman Shade. The great thing about Overstock’s selection is that they have so many widths and heights that you likely won’t have to cut them down at all. It’s like having custom-made blinds for your house.

 You may have spied the shades during the kitchen makeover. They were really easy to install. The key was to just space the base far enough outside the window and make them horizontally level. The easy-install brackets allow you just to slide the blinds back and forth until they’re evenly spaced around your window. Seriously, drill & screw, level, install, and slide- it’s that easy. Watch as my husband demonstrates. I swear he doesn’t usually coordinate his shirts to the room he is in.

Here’s the complete look, curtains, shades, and hardware, in the dining room.

I haven’t hemmed up the curtains because as you can see we’re still rearranging furniture. Despite how sheer the roman shades look when you stand outside you cannot see in. Even closed they let so much light into the house which is nice considering January has a tendency to be a very dark and cloudy month at times. If you checked out the dining room reveal you may have noticed we cheated a little. Still not sure how?

We hung the curtains a little outside the window trim and also hung the blinds above the trim to give the illusion of having larger windows than we actually do. I’ve noticed our barely-8-foot ceilings seem taller now than they ever did before thanks to that tip.

We finally addressed the trouble of windows and it turned out to be a lot easier than we planned. I’m not sure why I was convinced it would be so impossible (well, except we had a lot of past failures) but everything we did here was foolproof. Do you have a habit of building up projects to be impossible tasks?