Vertical Blinds

Things that make me gag!  Things that make too much noise!  Things that you should only ever see in a cheap motel!

Get the idea?  I’m not a fan of vertical blinds.  I wasn’t a fan even before Miss Aggie discovered that taking flying leaps into them creates the oh-so-harmonious 6am “clackle clackle clackle!”  I hate them now.  Here’s a pic from the night we moved in to give you an idea of what we were starting with.

Surprisingly it took me around 3 months to get around to replacing them in our bedroom.  The other day I had just about reached a breaking point, so I zipped on over to Home Depot after work to pick up some new blinds.  I knew I wanted some sort of bamboo roman shade look.  It’s pretty popular these days and if you’re lucky, you can get them pretty cheap.

Home Depot had two different ones: indoor and outdoor.  Here are the differences I noticed…

• Outdoor came rolled up and wrapped in plastic.  Indoor came rolled up and shoved in a sturdy plastic box.
• Outdoor came with an $18 price tag.  Indoor came with a $30 price tag.

OK – so I think the difference was probably in how you hang them up.  The indoor mounting method probably resembled something more like regular blinds with brackets and snaps and about 10-step instructions that don’t make sense.  Whereas, the outdoor method involved two hooks twisted into the wall.  Are the hooks visible? Yes.  Do you really notice them?  No.  If you’re thinking about it, you have that moment where you notice how they’re hanging over your windows, but I wouldn’t say they’re an eye sore in comparison to the alternative… not one worth spending $12 per window to mask.  So outdoor blinds it was!

The process of taking down the vertical blinds was a bit of a pain.  It involved balancing precariously in a window sill with a screw driver and a few yelps coinciding with a few falls.  We decided to leave the mounting brackets installed and stow the blinds in the basement to replace them when we move out down the road.  Too many times, we’ve bought things we just end up having to leave when we move.  This time we’re making sure these new blinds come with us and the poor people after us will just have to deal with the vertical blinds or replace them themselves like we did.  I know… it’s mean.  But, hey, they get to keep the nice shiny new bathroom floor!

The new blinds were stupid easy to install.  You just hold it up to the window and mark where the eyelet holes are.  Then, twist the hooks into the wall, and hang the blinds on them.

We love them.  Aggie?  Well – she’ll get used to it.  Now you can see what I was talking about with the visible hooks?  I honestly don’t mind them, but if you do, I’d go with the interior shades as opposed to this cheaper option.  The shades do let in a lot more light than the vertical blinds did, so we’re looking into different options for curtains to block a little morning light.