Quick Fix

Our office is located in the breezeway between the main house and the apartment. It's a nice wide room with windows all along one wall and then windows and a sliding door on the other side. The sliding door had those annoying vertical blinds. I *hate* vertical blinds. I've had to co-exist with them in just about all of the apartments I've ever lived in and they are just boring, void of any personality and not exactly private. Horizontal blinds, I can live with, but vertical-- blah!

The vertical blinds in the office were cheap and flimsy, with little metal weights on the bottoms and as soon as we moved in, the girls zeroed in on the weights and every single one has disappeared. I haven't seen one around here since, and as a result, the blinds flutter and don't hang down straight. Very unsightly, but we lived with it. It was only an office and when company came over, the door got shut to hide the mess on the desk.

For quite some time, I had a stack of yard sale sheets and linens and blankets on the floor of the office. I meant to put them away, but with 4 kids and a house to care for, time seems to slip through my fingers. Finally, I tackled them last week and as I reached for the orange blanket, an idea dawned on me.. would I be able to use it as a curtain in place of the vertical blinds? Could I use the existing hardware without having to buy new rods? I could, and I did.


Voila!! I was able to slip the old blinds out of their clips and I slipped the blanket in. I worried about the weight of the blanket, but it's holding. I can even open it with the old hardware! What a nice bit of re-purposing! Reusing the hardware and recycling a vintage blanket for a curtain.

When the sun comes in, the whole room gets a lovely orange glow and I've noticed the girls hang out in the office more often, sitting in the middle of the room on the floor, playing dominoes or cards. The room is also a bit warmer now, with the blanket keeping the cold contained instead of the old vertical blinds letting all the cold air in. I knew there was a reason I hadn't put away those old sheets and blankets! :o)