Window Coverings–Sheers Out, Blinds In

My mom made sheers to go on the windows in the living and dining room. The biggest issue with this is my parents live in a house with several animals – three cats, one dog. At one point last year there were five cats and one dog (eek!). The bottom of all the sheers were pretty ratty looking from rips and animal hair. After a while there isn’t really anything that can be done to make them look good. Also, in my opinion, sheers can look pretty dated. I’m not a fan.
Overall there are 5 windows downstairs – one very large window in the dining room, and one large window flanked by two tall thin windows in the living room. My parents recently invested in blinds for all of the windows downstairs and they look SO. MUCH. BETTER. It’ll probably help my sister with her allergies too because they won’t hold onto as much dust and fur as the sheers did.
I took some pictures – the quality isn’t that great because they were with my phone. The first one is of one of the small windows in the living room, and the second one is the dining room window.


My mom inquired at several places before placing her order. She called Blinds-To-Go first, thinking they would be the least expensive, but they weren’t by a long shot. She ended up getting a much better deal from Select Blinds, which is something I’ll be keeping in mind for when we move into the condo and have two walls of windows to contend with… although we’re definitely looking more for roller blinds, not slatted blinds like these.
Overall, the best price she was quoted from Blinds-To-Go was over $600, but the valance was very thin and to get a different pull cord was an added cost. At Select Blinds she got a much thicker valance (standard) and the price was $330 total! Literally almost half the price!! She asked at Blinds-To-Go if they could match that pricing and they said no. I was surprised because I always thought they would be the least inexpensive.
Have any of you gotten a great deal of window coverings? It’s one of the first things I think people should put up in their homes when they first move in so I’m doing my research early! Help a gal out!

Toronto Fall Home Show 2011

EI EI Home offered up two tickets for the Toronto Fall Home Show to me and the ol' bloggo, so my buddy Gary and I headed on over last weekend.

Gary was impressed that my tickets got us through the VIP Entrance (psst: every attendee was a VIP)

One thing I was definitely interested in checking out while at the home show was window coverings. The condo that we're moving to next year has 2 complete walls of windows - a long wall facing east (the bedroom, den and living room) and a short wall facing south (the other side of the living room and the kitchen).

We came across a Hunter Douglas booth with some pretty cool shades. These Duette Honeycomb shades had my attention for a good 20 minutes. I'd never seen shades like this before... I've also never gone shopping for window coverings either though, so take that with a grain of salt. After a bit of research online, I can tell you that these types of blinds are called cellular or honeycomb. The reasons I thought they were awesome is that:

a) they have a cordless lift option so the blinds can be positioned by hand (When Riley was a kitten, I once found her hanging from the cord of my blinds in my first university apartment. Needless to say, but cords are dangerous yo!)

b) they were top-down/bottom-up (hehe saying that makes me laugh every time) so you can pull them down from the top or pull them up from the bottom. 

c) the ones on the left had a sheer portion on top and a blackout portion on the bottom (perfect for a bedroom!)

This picture shows what the sheer part looks like for the shade on the left

These blinds would be $$$ and the option I had in mind and am still considering for window coverings is what Anna from Door Sixteen has. She used the ENJE roller blinds from Ikea and they look great. So clean and minimalist. I think they would be a great option for the living room/den/kitchen, but I would definitely need a more opaque option for the bedroom. I literally cover up every single source of light when I go to sleep. Light drives me nuts when I'm trying to doze off.

On another note, Gary and I also checked out some cool storage options while at the home show. This above-sink storage option immediately caught our attention. It uses an internal mechanism that counters the weight so it is easy to pull down and lift up.

This was a nicely decked out pantry. I imagine this would be easy to keep organized because everything is in plain view.

And we saw lots of options for bedside tables for beds with storage underneath!

This one would be pretty easy to make... I think

This one has more storage potential with the drawer. And I think it had integrated lighting in the headboard.. very cool.

Did you go to the Home Show? Find anything interesting? Did you get the bread pudding mix?? I may or may not have taken three packages...

A Little Caulk Goes A Long Way

If you're laughing at this post title, you're not alone.


Seriously, I can't read that title out loud without laughing. I also can't hear the word "duty" without laughing either. A couple weeks ago I was in a meeting with my coworker, Kim, when her supervisor said, "Whose duty is that?" and we burst out laughing. Ohhh geez. Judge me all you want. That's how I get my jollies.


So anywho, on to the post. 


I posted several weeks ago about repainting my bathroom window frame. If you take a look at the "after" shot, you can see there are gaps in between the window and frame. Every time I took a shower those gaps were just asking to be filled, but for some reason I thought it would be a lot harder to do. When I went to Home Depot with my Dad on Father's Day, he helped me pick out the right kind of caulk and lent me his caulking gun for the job. When we were at the register paying (and by we, I mean "he".. it was only $2 after all and he was buying a bunch of other stuff) I said, "Dad, don't forget to lend me your gun." The cashier was like, "Whaaaaaa?..." I'm not sure if she was more surprised that I called this guy Dad (we look NOTHING alike) or that I was asking to borrow his gun lol I assumed the latter and clarified so she wouldn't think we were crazy. 


When I got home, I googled how to remove old caulk*, and then got to work. 


I filled in all the gaps around the window - as it turns out, there was very little caulk in the window. There couldn't have been more than a foot's worth. Unfortunately, when I was working on the bottom of the window, a huge strip of paint came off and I haven't had a chance to repaint it yet, hence no "after" shots of the window. 


I did, however, manage to caulk a bunch of other things in the bathroom while I was at it. Caulking is such a little thing, but it made the bathroom look a lot less dingy.


Here are some before and after shots:


The vanity may or may not be breaking free because I routinely sat on it so I could sit super close to the mirror to apply mascara..... Lesson learned! I apply my mascara from afar now!

This one might be a bit less obvious. I recaulked where the short side of the tub edge meets the tile. 

All in all, I caulked the window, the vanity, the tub (as shown) and the exterior of the tub where it connects to the bathroom floor. For $2, I'd say (Dad's) money well spent!

*There are more steps involved, but for me, removing old caulk basically consisted of cutting it away with a utility blade, scraping away any residue, and then thoroughly cleaning and drying the area.

Refreshed Window Frame

Projects lead to more projects, renovations lead to more renovations. After painting the medicine cabinet, I decided to paint the window frame. I knew it would really brighten up the place if they were both white. And now that I've painted the frame, I want to paint the rest of the trim and the door in there too!

Currently the trim and door are the same colour as the "before" picture of the window frame, which is just a yucky beigey-green colour. Seriously, that was the colour of ALL of the trim in our apartment when we moved in... The living room and bedroom now have white trim (done some time last year) and the bathroom is next on my hit list.

Before painting, I sanded down the frame. Some areas were really rough so I had to sand them quite a bit so the finish would be smooth after painting. After sanding, I wiped down the whole frame with a damp cloth. I also cleaned the rails that the window slides on and the windows themselves. To clean the rails I mixed 1 part vinegar to 3 parts water and added a few drops of dish detergent. I poured a bit of the water straight onto the rails, used a bunch of Q-tips to scrub the dirt free, and then used the cloth to wipe up the water. Note: don't use a nice cloth because it will get DIRRRRTY.

Once everything was all nice and clean, I was ready to start painting. I painted three coats of semi-gloss paint in a colour called White High Hiding. Here are some before and after shots:

My friend, Gary, said the before and after picture of the medicine cabinet "look exactly the same"... so hopefully he thinks these before and after shots are more satisfactory :-P

And here's a painful "after" shot of my finger.. I pinched it when I put the lid back on the paint can and gave myself a blood blister :(

Rehung Curtain Rod

I spent waaay too long doing it and left about 6 extra holes in the wall, but the curtain rod has been rehung!  I hung it so it's not quite level with the ceiling and not quite level with the top of the window, so now it doesn't look as wonky. Goal accomplished! Woot woot!

Open - before shot

Open - after shot

Closed - before shot

Closed - after shot

In all honestly, I think the "open" view has improved, but I don't like the "closed" view as much. I think it'll look better once I hang something up on the wall to the left of the window.. balance things out a bit.

Wonky Bedroom Layout

The configuration of our bedroom is loopy... there's a good-sized west-facing window on one wall, an awkwardly built closet in the NW corner, a floor register in the SW corner, and a jut-out thing in the SE corner (which I think houses electrical or plumbing or something like that). See for yourself:

This is a (mostly to scale) floor plan of the apartment's bedroom and bathroom with the furniture laid out accurately. I've tried and I've tried to better reconfigure this room, but I just don't think it's in the cards. The window is actually centered on that wall, but the built-in closet makes it looks off-centered. I tried to camouflage the situation a bit by putting a curtain rod across the whole wall and using curtains that match the wall colour. Oh, I forgot to add: the window and curtain rod are level, the ceiling and floor... not so much. Check it out:

Open - it's this view that irks me!

Aside from looking lopsided (although I assure you the rod is level) the curtain kinda look alright when closed :)

 I feel like I can hear Mike Holmes' voice saying "make it right"... but I don't really know what I should do. I think I might try "un"-leveling the curtain rod so it's even with the ceiling instead of the window and I'll shorten the rod so it's only above the window, not the whole wall. As for the soon-to-be-permanently-exposed wall....well, I'll find some way to balance it out. Maybe something like what John and Sherry did for their guest room to balance out the wall where the bed and window are...


Suggestions are welcome!