I was in an absolutely terrible mood on Monday so it was just as well I took the day off from the blog. Instead I decided to take out my frustrations with my new drill.
Let me say first that I?ve never used a drill in my life but I went to the store last week and bought a rather nice drill (on clearance, of course), a set of bits, some drywall hangers, and a studfinder. Then I watched some videos on the internet about how to use it. My mission: to hang shades and curtain rods all over the house before our guest arrive later today.
You know what is harder than using a drill? Taking a decent picture of a window when it?s bright outside.
Here are the BEFORE pictures of the two large windows on the front of our house downstairs:
This picture is from when we were just looking at the house. The first thing my husband and I did was to take down that blue wooden pelmet above the window. (I plan to use it as a border on the extended raspberry patch I have not yet dug) The curtains themselves are not only a dated style but they didn?t close ? just decoration. They had to go.
The dining room had some decent custom roman blinds when we looked at the house but the seller removed them. Why? Did they move to another house with long narrow windows? We?ve been living here for two months with nothing on these windows. Good thing it?s been staying light pretty late into the evening until recently and that it isn?t a busy street!
Though there was a custom curved rod in the living room window I didn?t want to do curtains ? I had my heart set on bamboo shades. Unfortunately we aren?t made of money so I couldn?t get the custom lined and professionally installed shades of my dreams. Instead I ordered some reasonably priced bamboo shades online and did the installation myself with my handy-dandy drill and with all the false confidence and optimism of a total novice. Sure there were eight of them to hang, but how hard could it be?
So, first I should tell you that in each set of four panes, there are two pairs that are one size and two pairs that are slightly narrower. Also, they have fairly narrow sills and are all set at a slight angle in the wall. I had planned to mount the bracket to the ceiling above the windows and found that there is actually some sort of metal lip over a stud under the plaster (?) which made that not a great option. So I had to go for the narrow sills.
It took me about an hour to mount the first shade because of false starts and bad placement. I was able to drill a pilot hole for the screws but had to hand tighten the screws because of the tight space and also because the bracket had a fixed bolt on it that made even the screw driver a bit of a challenge. The side panes are the slightly narrower measure so I had to leave the screws sticking out a bit so I could angle the bracket a tad to fit the shade into it ? which required the use of a hammer in the end.
Things did go faster after the first one, but there were still a couple that gave me a lot of trouble for no particular reason that I can figure out. I worked on hanging shades from about 11am to 3:30pm and worked up quite a sweat in the process. The curtain rods for the two bedrooms upstairs were a piece of cake by comparison ? until I fell off the stepladder and tore a huge flap of skin on the bottom of my heel. Which is just perfect because it?s not as if I don?t have to be on my feet all day cleaning and mowing grass. Sigh.
Don?t the shades look nice though?
They don?t give as much privacy as I?d like at night so I will likely have to go back and add a lining to the back of them, but that?s a project for another day?
Source: http://www.jenyfermatthews.com/2012/08/15/home-improvement-or-something/
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