Looking Shady

Last week, I shared our little window dilemma with you (quick refresher: crooked, enormous, and only partially covered by the existing – and crumbling – white blinds).

Over the weekend, my pretty bamboo blinds from Overstock.com arrived – in the world’s biggest package. They camped out on the living room floor for 48 hours, until we could no longer avoid the major tripping hazard. We cracked the package open, and were pleasantly surprised by how pretty the shades were. Plus they included super-simple instructions (with words – take note, Ikea!) and all the hardware we needed.

Before we could hang the new blinds, we had to cast off the old. Which left us with a nice view of… our grill. And the neighbor’s house. Yep, it was time to install the new team of window coverings.

Since we needed 3 blinds to make up the total width of the window, that meant we had to line up the top edge of each of the blinds, which we were a little nervous about. In a past life, before we knew that nothing in our entire house was straight, we would have busted out a level to get these guys in line. Instead we used a tried and true tool – my eyeballs. Although I only observed from the ground level, installation was straightforward and simple. After adding the brackets, Tony hung the blinds on the brackets and secured them using the included wing nuts. All the mechanics are safely hidden behind the valance. How’s that for seamless?

While I generally take awhile to warm up to the results of a project, this was a pretty quick win for me – the blinds give the space some much-needed texture, and it makes infinitely more sense to have blinds that go all the way to the top of the window. The one tiny snafu is that the blinds peep over the edge of my curtains. I can’t decide if it bothers me enough to do something about it (like tweak the curtains for back-tab installation), but I’ll keep you posted.

Ready for the visuals? My lovely shades in the daylight…

At night time…

And at half-mast, which is my personal favorite. My furry friend agrees, because it gives him a great view of all the goings-on in the backyard.

What’s your favorite way to cover a window? Or do you prefer an unfettered view of the outside world?