Making Progress

This post is long overdue, but I was waiting to get all our window treatments installed and we’ve been busy in the meantime.  My parents finally sold their house and made the very long awaited 500 mile move to Alabama.  They are currently living with my sister while they build their new house.  Since we didn’t end up where we thought we would, they also changed their location search criteria.  In an unexpected twist, they are actually building in our new neighborhood and are using the builder of the house we bought.  They will be on the other side of the neighborhood, but we will be able to see the front of their house from our front door. 😯  Since this neighborhood is all Southern Living Plans, they chose the Eastover Cottage.  So, I may have a few future posts about that.  Meanwhile, we have the majority of their furniture so that it wouldn’t sit in storage.  The Kid is enjoying having recliners in the bonus room and we have patio furniture to sit on for now.

I’ve been continuing the process of unpacking.  All that’s really left are things we don’t have a place for.  The office doesn’t have a closet so we have nowhere (near the office, anyway) to put all that stuff.  Our bedroom still has a bunch of bags and boxes of clothes since we don’t have dressers or closet storage.  I’ve started working on the plans for the closet built-ins and hope to start building them soon.  More on that in another post.

That said, most everything may be put away, but the house is far from done.  I’ve yet to hang a picture or do any decorating.  Getting the window treatments installed has helped though and I took great joy in removing the curtains and hanging something more “me”.  I had collected quite a pile of shade samples and had a hard time deciding what type of window treatment to put in each room.  I ended up ordering shades for 2 rooms I didn’t expect to need anything in.  Below are my final selections which I ordered from 2 different websites.

Clockwise from Top:  Kid’s Bedroom – Hudson Blackout Roller Shade in White, Master Bedroom – Hudson Blackout Roller Shade in Grey, Guest Room – @Home Collection Blackout Roller Shade in Solid Sedentary Taupe, Breakfast Nook – 7% Metallic Solar Shade in Snow, Garage – American Sheer Weave 5% Solar Shades in Alabaster, Powder Room – @Home Collection Designer Screen Roller Shade in Lily, Dining Room – Crystal Weave Solar Shades in White, Study and Extra Bedroom – Good Housekeeping 3″ Sheer Horizontal Shadings in Room Darkening Ivory.

I hadn’t planned to put anything on the kitchen or dining room windows, but the morning sun in the kitchen and the afternoon sun in the dining room made it necessary.  I was most anxious to see the dining room shades I picked.  Unfortunately, despite being the first ones I ordered, they ended up being the last ones installed.

I mentioned before that our new window sills are really shallow due to the 4″ thick vinyl windows.  That leaves almost no room to mount brackets.  The brackets that came with these solar shades were larger than I expected which made the problem worse.  I didn’t order them with a cassette or valance because of the cost and I thought they would stick out from the window even more.  Turns out that they would have been easier to mount with one.

One option was to mount the bracket this way so that one screw would go in the top and one in the side.  I hated the idea of the corner of the bracket sticking out like that though.  We discussed putting some trim around them to make them look like part of the window, but I wasn’t crazy about that idea.  It would be a lot of work to make it all go together and look good.

Mounting them this way (below) would look better, but the screw holes were too far forward and would cause the end of the screws to come out the front of the window trim.  Long story short, David ended up cutting the brackets off just in front of the screw holes to make them shorter so they’d stick out less.  He drilled new holes so we could angle the screws backwards to prevent them from coming out the front of the trim.

Here is the dining room ones finally installed.  I love the looks of them and would have put them everywhere if I could have.  They have a sheen that almost looks metallic or pearlescent and the texture looks elegant for a solar shade.  They help cut the glare from the afternoon sun since the front porch doesn’t block it like I thought it would (might depend on the time of year).

During the day, they look opaque from the outside and you can’t see in at all.  As you can see in the picture, you can still see out though.  At night, it looks like there is nothing there if the lights are on in the room.

I put a similar shade by the kitchen table although this one is not as “fancy”.  The only time this one will be down is in the early morning, so it was less important how it looked.  Other than having a different texture and slightly different color, it’s basically identical to the dining room shades.

Right now, they look kind of stark next to the “linen cloth” trim paint.  Once I repaint all the trim to something more white (I’ve chosen Behr Ultra’s Silky White), they will blend in more.

The powder room was one I was anticipating the most.  I couldn’t wait to get that heavy curtain down.  The window is almost floor to ceiling and is right next to the toilet, overlooking the front porch.  So, it has to be covered 24/7 and the curtain made it always dark in there.  The challenge was to find something that will still let light in, but completely block the view during the day and night.  I found this white, linen texture fabric which is completely opaque, but still allows a ton of light in.

I also ordered this one with the standard brackets and no cassette since it’s a small room and the top of the window is above our heads.

I wasn’t sure what to put in the guest room except that I knew I wanted an inexpensive roller shade that looked nice.  All the whites were slightly strange shades next to the trim colors so I went with a dark taupe fabric.  I didn’t splurge on a cassette mount to save money and since this room isn’t used much.  This room faces north so this blind could be left up almost all the time and it doesn’t matter a whole lot what it looks like.

I went with nicer (and more expensive) roller shades for our room and The Kid’s.  I chose a light gray in our room to have something besides white.  I ordered these after we had received the dining room and kitchen blinds so I knew of the issue with the brackets.  Since these were going in bedrooms, I wanted the cassette mount to block more light and I knew at that point that it would make them easier to mount.

For our large bedroom window, I went with a plain white metal cassette.  Once I repaint the trim, it should blend in or I might paint it with the trim paint to match.

For the door, I went with standard brackets with a chrome finish to match the new levers and hardware I plan to put on all the doors.

The Kid’s room is the same, except that it’s white and the cassette has the matching fabric across the front.

The Study was another challenge.  It gets direct sun on 2 walls almost all day which, along with the computer, printers and the high ceiling, keeps it pretty warm in there.  I wanted something that would keep the heat out, but not leave it dark in there all day.  A tight weave solar shade may have worked, but we also wanted something that would block the view in at night.  I looked at several options until I saw the Silhouette shades at a Hunter Douglas showroom.  I usually steer away from anything sheer and potentially hard to clean, but the functionality of these seemed like exactly what we needed.  I found a similar shade online and ordered it for the study.

It rolls up just like a regular roller shade (these are only available with a cassette). . .

And you can lower them to any height . . .

When completely down, they don’t block out all the light so they wouldn’t be the best for a bedroom, but it’s fine for other rooms.  They come in either sheer or room darkening fabrics.  I chose room darkening after I saw the samples because I didn’t think the sheer would block enough heat or light.

Once completely lowered, if you keep pulling on the cord, the fabric vanes open like a wood blind and you can adjust them to any angle.

Below is a close up.  I chose an ivory color which blends with the vinyl window color (the sheer portions are almost always white).

Here it is on the big study window.  Even with the vanes open, they still do a pretty good job of controlling the heat from the sun.  They come with 2″ or 3″ vanes (Hunter Douglas also has a 4″).  I chose 3″ which allows more space between each horizontal piece of fabric, but they also stick out from the windows farther than the 2″ would have.

I like these a lot better than I was expecting.  They look really nice from the inside and out.  I’m not too worried about keeping them clean since they are able to roll up out of the way when needed.  I would have used them in more rooms if I could have.  They were the most expensive option I ordered though.

I also put one in our second guest room which gets the afternoon sun.  I was originally going to use a blackout roller shade, but I am going to use this room for crafts and sewing so I didn’t want it to be dark in there all day.  This room will only be slept in 1-2 times a year, so the fact that it doesn’t block all the light isn’t a huge deal.

I put inexpensive solar shades in the garage to block some heat and the view of all our junk.  I picked a white and beige mix which I thought would look less dirty than plain white.  I can always take those outside and hose them off if they get too dirty.  During the day, you can’t see in the windows at all, but you can see out fine.  At night, you can see in the windows like there is nothing there if the lights are on, but that’s not a huge deal in the garage.

I’ve left the roller shades that came with the house in the master bathroom and bonus room.

Another small change I made this week made me smile too.  We were wanting to change one of the closet doors to a locking knob.  I went ahead and ordered 4 of the levers I had picked.  I ordered 3 privacy levers and 1 passage lever.  The Schlage Latitude lever I had picked for the new construction house wasn’t going to work here because it was bordering on too modern.  Instead, I went with the Schlage Avila in Chrome.

I put the 3 privacy levers on our bedroom door, the powder room door and the closet we wanted to lock.  I put the one passage lever on the powder room closet so that both doors in that room have the new levers.  The chrome looks a little strange with the yellowish trim color, but that’s something else that will look better after I repaint.

Here’s a shot showing the old with the new.

It’s a little change, but I love the new ones!  This house has a lot of doors, so these 4 barely make a dent.  We’ll also have to change all the hinges, but I think I finally found somewhere (eBay) to order them that won’t cost a fortune.