Week ending 5/27/11

On Saturday, I had a massively frustrating few hours trying to hang the window shade in the office. I took down the trash bags that have been on the window in lieu of a shade for about 4 years and it took over an hour of scraping, scrubbing and wiping to get the residue off. I was using Goof Off, which is a pretty smelly solvent so it was not fun. I ended up using my fingernails for some of the job because it was the only thing that would work and believe me I tried a lot of different scraping tools. It's a good thing I'm not into having perfect nails because I had to cut them all short after this job. Having a nice manicure is not compatible with a fixer upper house.

Once I got the shade out and ready to be hung, I had to cut a bit off the end cap to accommodate the window shape. Unfortunately with the ongoing chaos here I don't have access to all my tools and couldn't access the appropriate tools to make a cut. Off to the hardware store! I absolutely detest living like this. I'm a hard core minimalist and would love to have a small mostly empty house. In my last apartment, a modest 1 bedroom, there was vast empty spaces, empty closets, empty cabinets, empty walls and empty flat surfaces and that's exactly how I like it. But for now, we can only get to projects so fast and the garage is low on the list so that's the way it is.

I also found that Hunter Douglas only sent 3 screws for the brackets and I need 6. How ridiculous and this is the 2nd of 9 shades they messed up in this way. I was foolish to think I could hang a shade in one session. With almost any home improvement job, there are multiple steps all of which have to go right for it to get done. The problem is that each step has a high probability of not going right so the entire project almost never does.

I was really pissed, frustrated, disappointed when I had to again put trash bags on the windows as it got dark.

Monday, I called the store where I got the shades and they said I could come in and pick up some screws and that they didn't have to order them for me. They better actually have what I need or I'm going to be pissed that they didn't order them for me and instead told me to come in because they have them.

I did pick up the bedroom curtains that will be used as a closet door and get them rehung. They look good and I'm glad to have that project behind me. Onto the den closet next and then the office after that.

On Tuesday, I picked up the missing screws at blind store, and it went smoothly. I hope to install the shade tomorrow.

Wednesday, I got the shade up in the office but didn't take any pictures :-( . I'll post some of the shades in the bedroom when they are up.

Here is the new curtain I put up to hide the bedroom closet. It is so nice not to be looking into the closet when I'm in bed!