Blinds are so Easy!
Hey reader!
There are many projects I feel empowered to just try whenever I get inspired to try them. I decided to learn how to make puppets and a few YouTube videos later I was sewing my first one. There are a few things that I find a little more intimidating, for whatever reason. One of the biggest is electrical. I have been electrocuted on two different occasions and it is not an experience I would like to repeat. I have a healthy aversion to doing that myself. You are probably asking: "How did you get electrocuted twice!?"
That is actually two kind of long stories. When I used to work at a big box store that will remain nameless, we would occasionally find opened merchandise on the store floor. People would crack it open to see what was inside. Sometimes they would decide they didn't want it after seeing the inside. The worse people were the ones who opened it and decided they wanted to buy it - and then grabbed a sealed one. What kind of monster does something like that?
Anyway, if it is opened to the point that we can't get it back in the box - or be sure all the pieces are still there - it gets sent to another facility where they do... something. Point is, it leaves the store. You can imagine, having a room full of functional but unsellable merchandise is a recipe for expensive items getting opened intentionally by staff, and then taken. In response, the store locked up all the open merch in a mesh cage in the back until the truck would come to take it away.
That is a lot of backstory to get to: some prankster managed to put an opened alarm clock in there and set it to go off in the middle of the night - during my shift. I handled it like a pro for the first 2 hours, but by then the incessant beeping was driving me and some of my less poised coworkers up the wall. Only managers had the keys to the cage, and none of them work at night (typical). That left me with a beeping alarm clock plugged in on the inside of a cage just out of my reach. I attempted to get it unplugged by stretching my fingers into the cage. I could get close enough to rock the plug out of the outlet part of the way, but then any further required me to touch the metal part of the plug. Danger.
This is a lot of talk of electricity. I am supposed to be talking about things that intimidate me in my desire to learn how to do all the things. Electricity is one, but using a saw is another. I really want to make large wood projects but that requires saws and wood and noise. These are all things I typically avoid.
I wanted to get blinds for my house. I have no window coverings anywhere and it would be nice to have the freedom to walk around naked. Not that I would, but it would be nice to have the option. I went to Home Depot's website and they have a really handy took for getting custom cut blinds! Saw required - but someone else is using it. Sounds like a win. They even have this handy worksheet to help you get it just right. Of course, the woman at the store who eventually cut my blinds had never seen the worksheet - so be inspired to use it and have fun!
There are two ways to mount blinds - inside and outside mount. Outside mount is what it sounds like. The blinds are mounted outside of your window and sits on top. Inside mount is only possible if your window is inset by 2 inches or more. You have heard me complain about how deeply inset my windows are and now I understand why! Measuring is a bit of a pain, especially because the stakes feel pretty high. These are not small investments and there is no second chance if it is too short. You measure the length and width in three places - middle and both sides. There is variation and you want to use the smallest measurement.
Getting my blinds cut was the easiest process. She took my worksheet and used this fancy press to cut them to fit. I went with 2.5 inch white artificial wood. They weren't the cheapest things in the world, but they also weren't the most expensive. I really want to get shutters installed eventually, but for what I paid for all the blinds I bought, I could have had one shutter. Financial responsibility!
Then it was finally time to hang my awesome new blinds. The longer blinds - in my living room - had three brackets. Since windows are framed in wood, there is no stud to find. You just space them out even-ish and don't put a bracket where the mechanics of the blinds will be. I hung all five of my blinds in under half an hour.
I got cordless blinds because that was what was available. I know that cordless blinds are better for children and pets, but I don't have either of those things. I would have liked a cord, but these are absolutely amazing just the same. The kit came with everything I needed, and some stuff I didn't. There was a fake valence that was only really needed for outside mount. I didn't think it looked like real trim so I wouldn't have used it anyway. It also came with caps for the ends of the top and bottom, as well as clips to lock your blinds at the bottom of your sill. I don't know why you would want to do that at your house, so I skipped that too.
I am so excited by how it all came out. I am still doing to do curtains eventually to hide the bull nosed corners that I don't like. But for now, I can walk around fully clothed with the knowledge I could be naked!
This feels like a long post, but really it was a great lesson for me that this project I was intimidated by turned out to be really not that bad after all. Plus, the results are well beyond my expectations. I don't think I will get to that point with electrical though.
Keep making cool stuff.
Until next time,
JoshPrime
There are many projects I feel empowered to just try whenever I get inspired to try them. I decided to learn how to make puppets and a few YouTube videos later I was sewing my first one. There are a few things that I find a little more intimidating, for whatever reason. One of the biggest is electrical. I have been electrocuted on two different occasions and it is not an experience I would like to repeat. I have a healthy aversion to doing that myself. You are probably asking: "How did you get electrocuted twice!?"
That is actually two kind of long stories. When I used to work at a big box store that will remain nameless, we would occasionally find opened merchandise on the store floor. People would crack it open to see what was inside. Sometimes they would decide they didn't want it after seeing the inside. The worse people were the ones who opened it and decided they wanted to buy it - and then grabbed a sealed one. What kind of monster does something like that?
Anyway, if it is opened to the point that we can't get it back in the box - or be sure all the pieces are still there - it gets sent to another facility where they do... something. Point is, it leaves the store. You can imagine, having a room full of functional but unsellable merchandise is a recipe for expensive items getting opened intentionally by staff, and then taken. In response, the store locked up all the open merch in a mesh cage in the back until the truck would come to take it away.
That is a lot of backstory to get to: some prankster managed to put an opened alarm clock in there and set it to go off in the middle of the night - during my shift. I handled it like a pro for the first 2 hours, but by then the incessant beeping was driving me and some of my less poised coworkers up the wall. Only managers had the keys to the cage, and none of them work at night (typical). That left me with a beeping alarm clock plugged in on the inside of a cage just out of my reach. I attempted to get it unplugged by stretching my fingers into the cage. I could get close enough to rock the plug out of the outlet part of the way, but then any further required me to touch the metal part of the plug. Danger.
This is a lot of talk of electricity. I am supposed to be talking about things that intimidate me in my desire to learn how to do all the things. Electricity is one, but using a saw is another. I really want to make large wood projects but that requires saws and wood and noise. These are all things I typically avoid.I wanted to get blinds for my house. I have no window coverings anywhere and it would be nice to have the freedom to walk around naked. Not that I would, but it would be nice to have the option. I went to Home Depot's website and they have a really handy took for getting custom cut blinds! Saw required - but someone else is using it. Sounds like a win. They even have this handy worksheet to help you get it just right. Of course, the woman at the store who eventually cut my blinds had never seen the worksheet - so be inspired to use it and have fun!
There are two ways to mount blinds - inside and outside mount. Outside mount is what it sounds like. The blinds are mounted outside of your window and sits on top. Inside mount is only possible if your window is inset by 2 inches or more. You have heard me complain about how deeply inset my windows are and now I understand why! Measuring is a bit of a pain, especially because the stakes feel pretty high. These are not small investments and there is no second chance if it is too short. You measure the length and width in three places - middle and both sides. There is variation and you want to use the smallest measurement.
Getting my blinds cut was the easiest process. She took my worksheet and used this fancy press to cut them to fit. I went with 2.5 inch white artificial wood. They weren't the cheapest things in the world, but they also weren't the most expensive. I really want to get shutters installed eventually, but for what I paid for all the blinds I bought, I could have had one shutter. Financial responsibility!Then it was finally time to hang my awesome new blinds. The longer blinds - in my living room - had three brackets. Since windows are framed in wood, there is no stud to find. You just space them out even-ish and don't put a bracket where the mechanics of the blinds will be. I hung all five of my blinds in under half an hour.
I got cordless blinds because that was what was available. I know that cordless blinds are better for children and pets, but I don't have either of those things. I would have liked a cord, but these are absolutely amazing just the same. The kit came with everything I needed, and some stuff I didn't. There was a fake valence that was only really needed for outside mount. I didn't think it looked like real trim so I wouldn't have used it anyway. It also came with caps for the ends of the top and bottom, as well as clips to lock your blinds at the bottom of your sill. I don't know why you would want to do that at your house, so I skipped that too.
I am so excited by how it all came out. I am still doing to do curtains eventually to hide the bull nosed corners that I don't like. But for now, I can walk around fully clothed with the knowledge I could be naked!
This feels like a long post, but really it was a great lesson for me that this project I was intimidated by turned out to be really not that bad after all. Plus, the results are well beyond my expectations. I don't think I will get to that point with electrical though.
Keep making cool stuff.
Until next time,
JoshPrime
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