Part 1 is something that should help anyone out who inherits an otherwise good set of blinds that have a bad color of fabric (tape) they would like to change to something normal looking. From a cost standpoint it makes total sense because tape can be found for about $1/foot, if not less and it would easily run hundreds to replace the entire set of blinds. Materials came from Fix My Blinds. Anyway on to the how to.
First of course, you'll need to remove the blinds from the wall. You should be able to figure this part out on your own.
Next you'll need to remove the clip at the bottom of each piece of tape. Untie the knot in the string underneath the clip you just removed. Now you should pull the string up past the top slat in the blinds. Once you've done both of them you can now slide the slats to the left or right leaving the tape behind.
Remove one of the pieces of tape from the blind - you'll use this to measure your new one from. This part is VERY important so read carefully. In the picture below you'll see how there are pieces of fabric connecting one side of the tape to the other. These are what each slat from the blinds sit on. These need to all be the same from one piece to the next or else the slats won't be horizontal - they'll be crooked and look terrible.
What I did was measure from the fold at the top of the tape to the first piece of fabric and adjust my fold to make the distance the same from the old tape to the new. In the picture above one part of the new tape is folded and the other is not yet, and it's all lined up so the new pieces will match the old one as well as each other. It took me a while to figure this out and I'm saving you the trouble here. Lining things up like this will also help you to get the other end cut so the new tape won't be any longer or shorter than the old one as well.
Putting the blinds back together isn't hard, but before you get into that go ahead and give everything a good cleaning since it's easier now than it ever will be in the future. The new tape goes in like the old came out, and it's hard to go wrong here. Slide the slats in and thread the two pieces of string back through the holes in the slats. Tie it off at the very bottom, put the clips back on and you're done.
As a side note, if you've ever wanted to see what UV light does to fabric check this out. Once upon a time it was forest green just like the other side is. Tinted windows or solar shades in a hot climate like this are a good thing.
And on to the other part of this post - one finished bedroom. Where are the other two? Not quite there... I need to hang a mirror in one, and do some major cleaning in the main bedroom but they'll be up soon. The office is almost done; I just need to move the desk, hang a few diplomas and evict everything up here that belongs in the kitchen.
This is the room that used to be gold once upon a time ago.
For today I'm moving on to work on the outside. This is a house blog but the back yard needs attention and doing a transformation to the back yard won't take long and will make a real difference to this place. We're still on target for being 100% done with everything next Saturday if you can believe it.
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