The blinds in the den are DONE

Remember that blinds project that I thought would never happen?  I chatted about it here,  and here, and here...The entire thing was a study in procrastination.

We started out with cellular shades in  the den, put here by the previous owners.  They were a cream color originally, but over the years they had gotten dingy.  Then the middle one broke.  Then I propped it for a while (which was ridiculous), then I took it down and raised the others so it wouldn't look so awkward while I finally got off my rear and ordered the wooden shades I knew would look great in here.

 Here is a closer view of that.  I had made "curtains" to hang between the windows, just to add some dimension to the window wall.  I used something similar to drop cloth material and trimmed it in burlap.  But I knew those would eventually come down, too.

 It was so blah.

I ordered samples from Blinds.com and The Girl and I spread them all out to choose.

We ended up with this combo - a natural woven shade with a natural burlap-looking trim, unlined to let more light in.  They came in after a couple of weeks and sat in the front room for about a week...I had to wait for Hubby to help me put them up, and I'm glad I did.  

Because the hardware that came with them was completely inadequate.  Not sturdy and not configured for side mount.  Not even the correct installation instructions. Much disgust.  We briefly considered sending them back.  After a momentary freak out on our parts, he ran to Home Depot and came back with brass L brackets. He had a plan.

He spent four hours, after working all day, configuring new hardware and hanging those blinds.  No way could The Girl and I have done it alone!

This was the solution to the hardware issue and mounting them from the side: remove the roller hardware, screw the L bracket to the stud in the wall, reattach the roller hardware over that.  Simple right?  HUGE pain in the butt involving measuring, remeasuring, and both of us standing on the ladder to steady the whole thing.  But that sucker is secure. We had to figure out how to adjust the tension on them and how they worked - again, inadequate instructions on the manufacturer's part.

 The next morning I tried to get some good pics, but it is devilishly hard to do.

They let in a lot of light, which is fine, because they are so beautiful and allow us to still see out of the windows.  They accordian up with a pull ring in the back center of the blind.

 So simple and pretty.  But I will probably leave them down most of the time.

All in all, worth it to improve the den, though I wish I had done more homework on whether they could be side-mounted.  And next time we install them (in the kitchen window seat) it will be easier since we will do a top mount.  And they weren't cheap, so I really want the blinds company to know that the hardware and instructions were lacking.

Whatcha think?