Ever since I moved into our house I have loved our windows. They all have deep window sills that I can place plants on (because I can be a crazy plant lady). After I painted all the window frames white, I felt like the rooms needed more warmth. I immediately thought natural woven shades in a mid-range color would be perfect. So I began sourcing shades, my heart hurt a little after seeing their prices... So I put this project on hold.
A year later, I still felt the windows, nay, the room needed that warmth. Once again I researched different shops and types of shades. I finally settled on Levolor natural woven wood shades with a privacy liner in Tatami color. These can be cut to custom sizes while you shop at Lowes. Luckily, for my dining room windows they didn't have to be cut.
These were so incredibly easy to install that I couldn't even believe it all took about 15-20 minutes from start to finish, for both windows...
First, I removed my old blinds which is fairly simple to do. Just slide the cover off of the box and pull out the blinds. Then unscrew the boxes (please tell me your windows are also unpainted under the boxes... It wont matter anyways since they will be covered by the new shades).
After I lightly washed my trim, I unpacked the shades from their boxes. It has the shades (obviously) and the hardware, so all you need is a pencil and a screwdriver (or drill...or both in my case). I love the hardware on this shade kit. The wing nuts are super DIY-friendly and anyone could put these shades up (even by themselves like I did).
What I did first was (cough,throw out the instructions, cough) hold the shades against my window. I choose to do an inside mount because it would work best for my deep windows. I used a pencil to mark the three holes (they are very forgiving) on my trim. Then I removed the wing nuts from the brackets included in the kit and placed the bracket along the lines I just marked. When I was happy with the placement, I screwed them into place using the kits included screws.
As you can tell from the pictures, the brackets are not on the lines I traced. I wanted my shades flush against the window, I just made sure the brackets stayed within the lines draw.
Finally, all I had to do was line up the holes with the bolts attached to the brackets and tighten the wing nuts on the bolts. Super easy, no tools needed for this part. Do you see the length of the holes (see, very forgiving)? I love this feature because it's almost impossible to make a mistake. And that is it, you are done! Now stand back and admire your handy work.
What do you think? I would love to hear your thoughts on the new shades. Comment below and we can talk!
Happy decorating!!!
Amy