Quite some years ago I installed miniblinds on the southern windows in the living room, which keep the afternoon sun off my upstairs desk. Time passes, they collect a generous layer of dust, and it’s easier to just replace them than to give them the thorough cleaning they deserve; they’re under $10 each.
With the new blinds in hand, the job turned out to be not quite as simple as one might expect(*). The new blinds have their middle support bracket on the right side of the central ladder, which means they’re not a drop-in replacement for the old blinds with their support on the left. That’s OK, I can just unscrew the adapter I made that fits the intended-for-a-flat-window-frame bracket to our mid-1950s curved moulding frames, drill another hole in the right spot, and screw it back in place.
Too bad about that paint, but we agreed that because it’s invisible from inside, we’re just not going to worry about it.
The adapter is a slice of bed frame steel that turned out to have exactly the right length for the job.
Of course, the new bracket has a completely different and incompatible screw hole pattern than the old one, but due to some bizarre slipup, the old bracket fits into the slot in the new blind. I have no explanation for that.
I also replaced the sun-faded end brackets, which were essentially identical to the new ones and perfectly fit the existing screw holes.
We had to return and replace the first two blinds, though, as I’d managed to pick up two identical packages with different manufacturing dates. They both had white miniblinds inside and sported the same SKU, but one blind was definitely white and the other a very light gray. This wouldn’t normally matter, but when they’re installed in windows just a few inches apart, the mismatch became painfully obvious.
The new-new blinds come from the same manufacturing lot and had a slightly different shade from both of old blinds and each of the old-new blinds.
(*) Full disclosure: I knew it wasn’t going to be simple, but hope springs eternal.
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 