When we were stripping wallpaper, we took down the curtains .. and never put them back up. While I'm sure it was entertaining for our neighbours and the local cat (Suki, see below), it was about time to get some privacy back.
We elected to go with plantation blinds as they are well .. just pretty cool. Instead of paying a fortune on one of the full service places like Hillary's, we went with one of the online retailers The Shutter Store . I'm convinced that all the shutters sold in the UK are made in the exact same factory in China - so the extra cost (like double) didn't seem justified. Online shutters are bit more DIY as you have to take measurements yourself. But given the theme of this blog, my readers would be disappointed if I did anything less!
I was impressed with the website and guidance notes. You'd have to be pretty thick to mess things up. Basically, you build some cardboard or paper templates. Measure out all the distances and plug them into the online tool. You can select pretty much everything imaginable - colour, opening direction, split, hidden bar, hardware colour, wood type. The only drawback is that when it's ordered, tens of thousands of Chinese workers get busy on them and there's no going back.
We went with a split cafe style look with a total of 24 panels in white hardwood. MDF would have been about 35% cheaper but it's heavier and I wasn't too keen on putting too much weight on the PVC windows.
The drawback was that the shutters were to take 8-10 weeks to get built and shipped so we ordered in late Oct to get for XMas. So all I could do is prepare the rest of the window. That involved sanding, priming and painting the window sill. I took the radiator off to make it a bit easier.
So fast forward 12 weeks and the boxes arrived, and arrived and arrived - 11 boxes in total. They missed the promised pre-XMas delivery so I had to wait until after Santa left to get started. That was fine with me as 1) they apologised profusely and refunded my shipping fees and 2) I was deathly ill with the nasty flu going around here over XMas so this was the last thing on my mind.
Oh and the light sabre was a Christmas gift in case you're wondering....
Now comes the fun part .. blatant use of power tools. In this case, say hello to my new router. Totally unnecessary Black Friday purchase but useful nonetheless. Because we had PVC sash windows and I didn't trust their support properties for the shutters, I decided to build a frame to screw the shutters into. I had to take this into account when ordering the shutters so they wouldn't stick out too far.
I was going to order 15mm thick strips of softwood from the building shop until I realised that nobody stocked 15mm strips of softwood. No matter, I had some unused square edge flooring that was just taking up space. I cut this into strips of the desired thickness and then proceeded to route away.
To manage the architrave around the window, I shaved off a groove on the back of each strip. Then is contoured these to fit snug against a PVC window baton. Was this necessary, no. But was it fun, YES!!!
With the batons all cut and routed, I proceeded to paint them with a wood primer. Once they were dry, I measured these to the inside window frame size and mitred the corners to fit together.
And for those in Canada experiencing temperatures of minus ridiculous, it was about 8 degrees and sunny on Boxing Day :)
The wood frame was fixed to the window frame with a combination of GripFill and screws. It should hopefully be plenty strong now.
The first frame fastened and held tight with a clamp while the GripFill set. Notice the Christmas tree in the background. This is not recommended for those installing shutters in their hopes - gets in the way - but safer to keep in place than explain to a little kid coming down from a candy induced sugar rush that the tree has to come down early this year. I'm not brave enough to attempt that one.
The full frame now mounted .. on to the shutters.
Putting the actual shutters on couldn't have been easier. Even in my weakened post-flu state, it was a piece of cake. The only challenge was trying to figure what was what across 11 boxes. And all the blasted packaging!
I assembled the provided frame on the ground and fastened it to my new DIY frame on the window.
To mount the actual shutters, all I needed to do was align the hinges and drop in a pin. Simples.
And there you have it. Blinds are up and looking great. The show is over, but at least the neighbours have something nice to look at now.
