Adventures in Window Treatments

When Robert and I bought our condo, it came with some pretty janky white plastic blinds. We didn't think too much about it until, about 4 minutes after moving in, we discovered they had no wand. The rope-pull was there to open and close the blinds but we couldn't actually rotate the individual blinds themselves. Eh, okay... we'll live. Or so we thought. We soon discovered that if we wanted any air to circulate in the house, we'd have to have the door open. Door open = blinds open. Which would normally be fine except the pool is right outside our patio. If we can see Fatty McMan-Boobs barbecuing and the amorous couple in the hot tub, they can see us, too. Me no likey. Robert didn't mind that so much but, luckily for me, he didn't like the clackity-clackness of the blinds so three years later, we decided to buy some new ones. Yeehoo!

(This was the best photo of the old blinds I could find...)

The weekend before Memorial Day we schlepped down to Expo to peruse their selection. Neither Robert nor I had warm fuzzy feelings for Expo after our last adventure there - buying our counter top - because they have the Worst. Customer. Service. EVER. Seriously. No one knows what they're doing and if by some miracle you actually find someone and drag them off to help you, they let you know that they're none to pleased to be there. But, they were offering some 12 months no payments/no interest extravaganza that Robert wanted to take advantage of, so off to Expo we went.

I won't bore you with (too many) details but needless to say, Expo's customer service was just as delightful as we remembered. Loverly. Robert had taken his own measurements of our sliding glass door and the el cheapo white blinds - and the woman helping us was not happy about that. She told us 492 times that "self-measured blinds can't be returned... other people have tried it and they haven't been happy... it's only $82 to get one of our people to come out, you know..." When Robert was quite firm in his assertion that he trusted his own measurements and was willing to take the risk, she wrote "SELF MEASURED!!!" in ginormous letters with stars and exclamation points on the bottom of the order form. Ugh. (Besides, the woman was retarded - there was a big sign on her desk indicating that the $82 promotion was only good if you bought 3 window treatments. Dumbass.) We carried on. Unfortunately, the woman couldn't find the type of blind we wanted in the catalog - Robert found it for her - and then she didn't know how to fill out the order form. She had to wander off to ask someone, which took 10 hours, and she still did it wrong - Expo called us the next day to fill in the blanks she'd overlooked. Both Robert and I were quite sure that whatever blinds arrived on our doorstep in 2-3 weeks would not be exactly what we'd asked for...

But they were! They were the right dimensions, they came with the type of wand we'd ordered, they were the right color and they opened in the middle like they were supposed to. Joy! Now the question was: could Robert install them properly by himself? I honestly had no qualms that he could figure it out; I also knew I didn't really want to be there when he did! ;o) But Robert was chomping at the bit to get the suckers up, so Saturday morning he started...

Robert was very diligent and methodical in his approach to the blinds installation, as I knew he would be. He only got as far as getting the brackets up before he had to quit for the day (we had an early Father's Day celebration at my parents' house that afternoon). First thing Sunday, he was at it again... only his first attempt came up a bit short, as you can see in the photo below.

Robert wanted to double-check the length of the el cheapo blind vs. the new blind...

He found his measurements were correct and just as he'd thought - but he'd been so nervous about making the blinds too low that he over-corrected and made them floodwater blinds.

So, we unattached the rod, he reset the brackets and tried it again. This time, however, the blinds were too low and rode the carpet (above). Again we removed the rod, he reset the brackets and... the blinds were still too low. I don't have a photo of me lying on the ground and covering my ears from the imminent onslaught of swear words but believe me, it happened. Robert took a break for a bit and then tried adjusting the brackets one last time. The third time was the charm (thank goodness!) and the blinds were just right.

So, we snapped in all the blinds and hung the valance...

Only to discover that the blinds wouldn't close all the way. I burst out laughing, I couldn't help myself! Robert actually handled it very well and calmly readjusted the blinds so that they would close completely.

Success! By 8:00 Sunday night, the blinds were done. Sweet.

The wand was rigged too tightly, making it "too erect." This made Robert chuckle, which brightened his mood a bit. (He was able to re-wicker it with no problem.)

You guys probably knew this already but new blinds have the coolest wands! I had no idea that companies made them like this, but the rope and the wand are all one unit now. It's awesome!

And thus concludes the saga of the vertical blinds. They are perfect and beautiful... and they work! The saleswoman at Expo should sleep better tonight knowing that Robert will not be coming back as an irate customer trying to return self-measured blinds after she told him he couldn't.