Another Before and After

This is a picture of my kitchen and the horrid vertical blinds, or what's left of them, that came with the house when we bought it. They were made of fabric and the weights at the bottom kept falling out. Out of complete frustration, I stuffed the weights back in and stapled the little pocket shut on both sides to keep them from falling out. They didn't do much to keep out the hot summer sun either. Then you have our enthusiastic but adorable Sagan. Whenever he is really, really excited, he jumps up and down. He jumps straight up in the air, like he's on a trampoline. He jumps up really high too. He's done it ever since we got him. Whenever he knows we are letting him out, or whenever we come home, he jumps up and down. It's a hoot to see his big silly laughing face bouncing up and down in the front door window. Even if he's out in the yard and I'm driving up the driveway and he's at the fence, he jumps up and his head easily clears the top of the 6' fence. Unfortunately, when he's upstairs and jumps up and down at the kitchen slider, his feet would tear down the fabric pieces. It got to the point where, as you can see by the photo, there was a HUGE gap where the blinds should be. Now that it's dark in the morning, I didn't like sitting there eating my breakfast at 6:00 a.m. without some modicum of privacy, so I hung that pitiful, ineffective wood blind thing outside.

It was clear that we had to get something new, but we aren't exactly "handy". Not at all. You won't find us browsing Home Depot or any other hardware stores for DIY items. We can't do ANYTHING ourselves, except paint. So I went to blindsgalore.com and ordered new "faux" wood verticals, and when they arrived, we had them installed.

Looks much better, eh?
They're not perfect, but they'll do. The company cut the blinds a 1/2" longer than the valance, but since it's on the microwave side, no one can see it so we don't care and it's certainly not worth sending them back and waiting another month.