This Is Better
We have window shades now. Roy and his son Levi came and installed the Hunter Douglas Duette honeycomb blinds we ordered when we first moved in. It took a while to get them, but it was worth the wait. This is so much better.
The dining room shades only go up to the transoms. We left the top part uncovered. When the shades are raised, you can't even tell there are any window treatments on these windows at all.
I like having the light and the open view all day. But at night we'll lower the shades and finally have some privacy.
On the sliding patio door that opens out to the road in front, we had a "vertiglide" shade installed. It's the same honeycomb fabric in the same color, and it works like a blind, only it slides to the left instead of up or down. The matching window has the top down bottom up feature.
Like the dining room windows, the slider shade can be opened to any width, and when it is fully open it virtually disappears.
We'll keep it open in the day, but when Jim needs to settle into his man corner at night to watch TV, the closed shade will finally give him privacy.
When the master bedroom sliding door is eventually replaced, I'll have Roy come back and install the same vertiglide shade for that new door too.
The other bedrooms got shades too, and the light fabric color particularly brightened the orange guest room. This room gets western sun (hence, the inability to photograph the window in this shot, taken in the afternoon). The shade cools the temperature of the room in the afternoon, but brightens the dark colors at the same time.
The master bathroom was a problem. It has the oddest windows -- two six foot tall, extremely narrow windows over the tub and above the toilet -- the bottom sill starts more than 40 inches off the floor. So the top of those windows is over 9 feet tall.
The former owners had put up plastic blinds that hung funny and could not be raised or lowered -- the wand and the cords were 8 feet high. For reference, those lights over the mirror are way above my head. There was no way to reach the controls for the blinds.
The new Duette honeycomb blinds are much nicer, and the wand is 60 inches long, so I can reach it by leaning in over the tub and over the toilet. You can see it is just barely accessible now.
(Yes, the master bath is painted pink. I didn't show you that before? The hue changes with different light, but in all lights it is distinctly swine colored.)
But the new blinds have a problem. I can reach the controls okay, but the wand is now so long, it needs a wide arc to the side to "catch" so it will release. There's no room to swing it over far enough to release. I guess I'll end up leaving these towering bathroom blinds closed.
Roy and I had fun playing with the catch mechanism to try to get it to work, while he told me how wonderful Santa Fe is to live in. He's a lifelong SantaFesino, and would never live anywhere else, certainly never ever in a swamp like Florida. No bueno.
Even with the master bath window design flaw, our new shades are so, so much better. And I agree with Roy: living here in this dry climate really does seem so much better than Florida at the moment.
The dining room shades only go up to the transoms. We left the top part uncovered. When the shades are raised, you can't even tell there are any window treatments on these windows at all.
I like having the light and the open view all day. But at night we'll lower the shades and finally have some privacy.
On the sliding patio door that opens out to the road in front, we had a "vertiglide" shade installed. It's the same honeycomb fabric in the same color, and it works like a blind, only it slides to the left instead of up or down. The matching window has the top down bottom up feature.
Like the dining room windows, the slider shade can be opened to any width, and when it is fully open it virtually disappears.
We'll keep it open in the day, but when Jim needs to settle into his man corner at night to watch TV, the closed shade will finally give him privacy.
When the master bedroom sliding door is eventually replaced, I'll have Roy come back and install the same vertiglide shade for that new door too.
The other bedrooms got shades too, and the light fabric color particularly brightened the orange guest room. This room gets western sun (hence, the inability to photograph the window in this shot, taken in the afternoon). The shade cools the temperature of the room in the afternoon, but brightens the dark colors at the same time.
The master bathroom was a problem. It has the oddest windows -- two six foot tall, extremely narrow windows over the tub and above the toilet -- the bottom sill starts more than 40 inches off the floor. So the top of those windows is over 9 feet tall.
The former owners had put up plastic blinds that hung funny and could not be raised or lowered -- the wand and the cords were 8 feet high. For reference, those lights over the mirror are way above my head. There was no way to reach the controls for the blinds.
The new Duette honeycomb blinds are much nicer, and the wand is 60 inches long, so I can reach it by leaning in over the tub and over the toilet. You can see it is just barely accessible now.
(Yes, the master bath is painted pink. I didn't show you that before? The hue changes with different light, but in all lights it is distinctly swine colored.)
But the new blinds have a problem. I can reach the controls okay, but the wand is now so long, it needs a wide arc to the side to "catch" so it will release. There's no room to swing it over far enough to release. I guess I'll end up leaving these towering bathroom blinds closed.
Roy and I had fun playing with the catch mechanism to try to get it to work, while he told me how wonderful Santa Fe is to live in. He's a lifelong SantaFesino, and would never live anywhere else, certainly never ever in a swamp like Florida. No bueno.
Even with the master bath window design flaw, our new shades are so, so much better. And I agree with Roy: living here in this dry climate really does seem so much better than Florida at the moment.
Comments
Is Jim noticing any difference with the back and the climate?