New Blinds
My new blinds came in on Friday and after the mandatory three trips to the "hardware" store I finally got them installed. On Friday I decided that I really didn't like the idea of limited surface mounting on the shoe/stop trim that holds the window sash in place since the surface area is about 3/4 inch wide. Since the factory mounting hardware was about 2 inches wide only having 3/4 of the surface I was afraid of the mounts flexing. Also if I had mounted the brackets on the shoe trim the screws would had been only in the edge of the window casing and I was worried about the edge of the casing splitting.
I got a late start on Friday so I didn't make it to Lowes before they closed so I had to go back Saturday morning.
My first plan for making a more secure was to remove the shoe and replace it with a two inch wide trim piece in place of the top sash trim. Of course finding a 2 inch wide by 5/8 inch thick of oak isn't easy - Lowes selection of oak trim is fairy sparse. Luckily, Menards had 1/4 inch by 2 inch lattice strips and when stuck together it equaled the 5/8 thickness of the original trim. So after finding a stain that would match the original mahauganory finish. I even got some shellac and had tested the color match on the new red oak and it wasn't bad.
So after I installed my first section of new trim up I was looking the area around the casing and I decided that the little framing angle iron I had picked up in Lowes but I decided to come back with a cart or a basket - damn't I forgot to go back for them. So at 8:30 pm I decided to go back to Lowes. It turned out the be the perfect solution as it just fit into the space between the sash shoe and the inner sash divider -see the image at the end of the post.
So I figured at $2.03 a gallon, 23 miles oneway to Lowes and I am getting around 20 mpg it cost me at least $6.00 in gas special trips to get everything I needed to mount these blinds as securely as I wanted them to be mounted without causing doing any more holes than necessary in the trim.
These are custom sized ordered from JC Penny's and I am really happy with them. The only thing is they sent me double string controls instead of the wand control. Other than that problem I am really happy with them.
This image below shows how close I was able to get the color to match the existing trim.
My mount - pop riveted to the factory mount.
Of course I found out that the previous owner used liquid nails to glue the sashes together on the big front window - my guess to keep the draft down - that isn't going to be fun job to clean that mess up when I fix the sash cord and reglaze the sashes.
posted by Jon at Homer @ 8:57 PM
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The old climber is filling out, should be blooming soon, the BT roses have buds, and the new climbing blaze is leafing out.
