Another completed ‘project’

Recently, yet another project was completed house at my new house, but it wasn’t one I did, exactly—apart from paying for it all. Instead I ordered something to be installed, and it turned out to be among the best things I’ve done since I moved in.

Back in July, I talked about how I wanted to fix a mistake I’d made when I ordered window coverings for the house (they were installed back in February). Those new blinds were installed around a week and a half ago (“after” photo is up top, “before” photo is below).

It took at most 20 minutes for the guy to install the blinds in my office (after I moved my desk out of the way…), and in the guest room. He also installed one of the roller blinds in one of the garage windows for me (sadly, it’s still not possible to get to the other one; I’ll do that window myself later).

When he’d left, and I got the blinds positioned “just right”, I realised something: I’ve done a lot of things to this house since I moved in, both big and small, and I’ve liked them all, to varying degrees. But this thing? It actually made me happy. It was exactly what I wanted, and exactly what I’d visualised, something that’s not always the case when changing things in one’s home. For the first day or two, every time I walked past the guest room I’d look at the window and smile (maybe only inwardly…) because I really liked the result.

This was a very small thing, really, but it made my house much more of what I want, and also did the two things I most wanted: Control light and control privacy. The latter became more important when they started building a house next door, because that’s the same side as the windows I put the blinds in.

There is one thing, however, that keeps this from being a tale of perfect vision realised perfectly: It turns out that even with the blinds in place, the afternoon glare when I’m sitting at my desk can be quite intense. The new house will shade it in later afternoon, I think, but in the house before that I’ll need to do something (other than close them completely). I’ll first try to control the light by controlling the tilt of the blades in the blinds (so far, that hasn’t been very successful, but I only tried that once so far). The option is to turn my desk 90 degrees so my side is to the window, not my face, which isn’t my preferred option. Still, the important thing is that I can let in light and control privacy, which was the entire point, even if I haven’t gotten it perfect—yet.

As I noted in my July post:

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.

The important thing is that I fixed my mistake, and that makes me very happy. See? It does happen!

This was what I replaced—they were either up or down. The blinds allow light and also preserve privacy. The framed photographs either side of the window are my own, and the framed picture on the left is a copy of an antique map.

Unlike most of the photos I post to this blog, the photos in this post are copyright ©2020, all rights reserved. They may not be reproduced in any form without my express permission.