Fixing my mistakes

This will come as shock, but it turns out that it’s impossible to get everything right when setting up a new house. That’s okay: There’s nothing wrong with making mistakes, but learning from them is important. As is fixing them when we can. I’m doing all of that.

My window coverings were installed at the end of February, as I blogged about at the time. In that post, I described what I chose and why, especially:

The other two bedrooms [the guest room and my office] have roller blinds (like old fashioned window shades, but adjusted with a chain, not a spring). They give privacy at night and block-out sunlight, and they’re also less expensive than other options.

Yeah, well, that was a big mistake. What I didn’t realise at the time was that the roller blinds would only be good at night, when they block out light, something they do very well. But in the daytime, they have to be up to let the daylight in, which means that in summer when the sun is hot, the heat is intense. Closing them to keep the heat out means keeping all the daylight out, too. In the case of my office, I need to close the roller blind every afternoon, regardless of season, because the sun eventually shines directly in my eyes because my desk is in front of the window. This isn’t ideal.

So, I recently decided to install the same kind of Venetian blinds that are in the windows in the master bedroom and the lounge. In other words, all the windows in the house will match, they’ll all preserve my privacy, and they’ll all let me control the amount of light that shines into the house. It’s a win all around.

There is a cost to this, of course, but it also adds experience and lessons learned. The truth is, I was penny wise and pound foolish: My drive to save money is costing me more money and causing me hassles. Live and learn.

I considered putting in some other blinds, ones I put up myself, but I knew that having all the windows match would be the best thing, and I’d learned my lesson about trying to cut costs in the wrong place. So, I ordered the blinds from the company that put the others in, and they should be installed in around four weeks.

However, the roller blinds aren’t a total loss: The windows in the garage are the same size, and I’ll eventually install them in the two windows there. In the summer, I can close them in the morning to keep the hot sun out, and also at night in winter to keep it warmer in there (part of my plan has always to be to use my garage as a workshop for projects, among other things, and that’ll help keep it more comfortable for more of the year).

I made a mistake back in January when I cut costs in the wrong place, but I learned from that and didn’t cut costs in the wrong place again when I decided to fix that mistake. I’ll also be able to reuse my “mistake” in a place I probably would’ve put “cheaper” window coverings, so, as mistakes go, this one was actually pretty minor.

This has also shaped my thinking and decision-making around all my future decisions about the house and the changes I want to make: I’ll redouble my efforts to make the right choice, and not choose something just because it’s the cheapest.

Through all this, I hope to reduce the number of mistakes that need to be fixed. At the very least, I’ve learned from my mistake, and I’m fixing it.

The photo up top is the roller blind in the guest room. Another thing I fixed was to put the control on the left side (easier to get to). The sunlight is shifted to green by the colour of the trim around the window, which is kind of weird looking. The photo below is of the blinds being installed in the lounge back in February.